The Doomsday Key and The Last Oracle with Bonus Excerpts: A Sigma Force Novel
Date: 2011-12-20 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Thriller
Description: For a limited time, discover the bestselling Sigma Force thriller series by James Rollins, with a specially priced bundle of The Doomsday Key and Last Oracle. And don’t miss an extended excerpt from The Devil Colony, Rollins’s latest New York Times bestseller, as well as an exclusive teaser from Blood Line, the next Sigma Force novel on-sale June 2012.
Rights: Copyright © 2009 by James Czajkowski

THE DOOMSDAY KEY AND THE LAST ORACLE
WITH BONUS EXCERPTS

Two Sigma Force Novels

James Rollins

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

THE DOOMSDAY KEY: A SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

Dedication

Northern Europe and Arctic Circle

Notes from the Historical Record

Note from the Scientific Record

Epigraph

Spring, 1086 England

Present Day October 8, 11:55 P.M. Vatican City

FIRST: THE SPIRAL AND THE CROSS

1 October 9, 4:55 A.M. Mali, West Africa

2 October 10, 7:04 A.M. Prince William Forest Virginia

3 October 10, 7:28 P.M.Rome, Italy

4 October 10, 3:28 P.M. Rockville, Maryland

5 October 10, 6:32 P.M. Washington, D.C.

6 October 11, 6:28 A.M. Fiumicino, Italy

7 October 11, 8:04 A.M. Oslo, Norway

8 October 11, 8:14 A.M. Rome, Italy

9 October 11, 8:23 A.M. Rome, Italy

10 October 11, 3:12 P.M. Washington, D.C.

11 October 11, 11:22 P.M. Oslo, Norway

SECOND: FIRE AND ICE

12 October 12, 10:12 A.M. Hawkshead, England

13 October 12, 1:36 P.M. Oslo, Norway

14 October 12, 4:16 P.M. Lake District, England

15 October 12, 11:35 P.M. Oslo, Norway

16 October 13, 12:22 A.M. Lake District, England

17 October 13, 3:23 A.M. Oslo, Norway

THIRD: SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

18 October 13, 8:43 A.M. Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

19 October 13, 10:13 A.M. Aberdaron, Wales

20 October 13, 12:41 A.M. Svalbard, Norway

21 October 13, 12:32 P.M. Bardsey Island, Wales

22 October 13, 1:13 p.m. Svalbard, Norway

23 October 13, 1:32 P.M. Bardsey Island, Wales

24 October 13, 1:35 P.M. Svalbard, Norway

25 October 13, 3:38 P.M. Bardsey Island, Wales

26 October 13, 8:18 P.M. Svalbard, Norway

FOURTH: THE DARK MADONNA

27 October 14, 5:18 A.M. Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

28 October 14, 12:18 P.M. Troyes, France

29 October 14, 2:40 P.M. Clairvaux, France

30 October 14, 3:33 P.M. Clairvaux, France

31 October 14, 4:04 P.M. Clairvaux, France

32 October 14, 4:15 P.M. Clairvaux, France

33 October 23, 10:14 A.M. Washington, D.C.

Epilogue: October 23, 11:55 P.M. Washington, D.C.

Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction

THE LAST ORACLE: A SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

Title Page

Dedication

Map

From the Historical Record

Prologue

First

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Second

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Third

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction

AN EXCERPT FROM THE DEVIL COLONY: A SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

Title Page

Notes from the Historical Record

Notes from the Scientific Record

Prologue

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

AN EXCERPT FROM BLOODLINE: A FORTHCOMING SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

Title Page

Chapter One

About the Author

Also by James Rollins

Copyright

About the Publisher

THE DOOMSDAY KEY

A Sigma Force Novel

James Rollins

Dedication

To Mom
With all my love

NORTHERN EUROPE AND ARCTIC CIRCLE

DOOMSDAY VAULT

NOTES FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD

During the eleventh century, King William of England commissioned a comprehensive survey of his kingdom. The results were recorded in a great volume titled the Domesday Book. It is one of the most detailed accounts of medieval life during that time. Most historians accept that this grand accounting was done as a means to gather a proper tax from the populace, though this is not certain. Many mysteries still surround this survey, like why it was ordered so swiftly and why some towns were inexplicably marked with a single word in Latin meaning “wasted.” Furthermore, the strangeness of this census and its exacting detail earned the tome a disturbing nickname by the people of its time. It became known as the “Doomsday Book.”

During the twelfth century, an Irish Catholic priest named Máel Máedóc, who would eventually be named Saint Malachy, had a vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome. In that ecstatic trance, he was given knowledge of all the popes who would come until the end of the world. This grand accounting—a cryptic description of 112 popes—was recorded and safeguarded in the Vatican archives, but the book vanished, only to resurface again during the sixteenth century. Some historians believe that this recovered book was most likely a forgery. Either way, over the intervening centuries, the descriptions of each pope in that book have proved to be oddly accurate—up to and including the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. In Saint Malachy’s prophecy, the current pope is listed as De Gloria Olivae, the Glory of the Olives. And the Benedictine order, from which the pope took his name, does indeed bear the olive branch as its symbol. But most disturbing of all, Pope Benedict XVI is the 111th pope. And according to this oddly accurate prophecy, the world ends with the very next one.

NOTE FROM THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD

During the years 2006 to 2008, one-third of all honeybees in the United States (and much of Europe and Canada) vanished. Thriving hives were suddenly found empty, as if the bees simply flew away and never returned. The condition earned the name Colony Collapse Disorder. This massive and mysterious loss generated sensational headlines and fears. So what truly happened to the bees?

Within the pages of this novel lies an answer … Most frightening of all, it’s true.

Epigraph

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, there will reign Peter the Roman, who will feed his flock among many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.

—PROPHECY OF SAINT
MALACHY, 1139

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.

—THOMAS MALTHUS,AN ESSAY
ON THE PRINCIPLE OF
POPULATION, 1798

The time to buy is when blood is running in the streets.

—BARON NATHAN ROTHSCHILD,
WEALTHIEST MAN IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY

Spring, 1086
England

The ravens were the first sign.

As the horse-drawn wagon traveled down the rutted track between rolling fields of barley, a flock of ravens rose up in a black wash. They hurled themselves into the blue of the morning and swept high in a panicked rout, but this was more than the usual startled flight. The ravens wheeled and swooped, tumbled and flapped. Over the road, they crashed into each other and rained down out of the skies. Small bodies struck the road, breaking wing and beak. They twitched in the ruts. Wings fluttered weakly.

But most disturbing was the silence of it all.

No caws, no screams.

Just the frantic beat of wing—then the soft impact of feathered bodies on the hard dirt and broken stone.

The wagon’s driver crossed himself and slowed the cart. His heavy-lidded eyes watched the skies. The horse tossed its head and huffed into the chill of the morning.

“Keep going,” said the traveler sharing the wagon. Martin Borr was the youngest of the royal coroners, ordered here upon a secret edict from King William himself.

As Martin huddled deeper into his heavy cloak, he remembered the note secured by wax and imprinted by the great royal seal. Burdened by the cost of war, King William had sent scores of royal commissioners out into the countryside to amass a great accounting of the lands and properties of his kingdom. The immense tally was being recorded in a mammoth volume called the Domesday Book, collected together by a single scholar and written in a cryptic form of Latin. The accounting was all done as a means of measuring the proper tax owed to the crown.

Or so it was said.

Some grew to suspect there was another reason for such a grand survey of all the lands. They compared the book to the Bible’s description of the Last Judgment, where God kept an accounting of all mankind’s deeds in the Book of Life. Whispers and rumors began calling the result of this great survey the Doomsday Book.

These last were closer to the truth than anyone suspected.

Martin had read the wax-sealed letter. He’d observed that lone scribe painstakingly recording the results of the royal commissioners in the great book, and at the end, he’d watched the scholar scratch a single word in Latin, in red ink.

Vastare.

Wasted.

Many regions were marked with this word, indicating lands that had been laid waste by war or pillage. But two entries had been inscribed entirely in crimson ink. One described a desolate island that lay between the coast of Ireland and the English shore. Martin approached the other place now, ordered here to investigate at the behest of the king. He had been sworn to secrecy and given three men to assist him. They trailed behind the wagon on their own horses.

At Martin’s side, the driver twitched the reins and encouraged the draft horse, a monstrously huge chestnut, to a faster clop. As they continued forward, the wheels of the wagon drove over the twitching bodies of the ravens, crushing bones and splattering blood.

Finally, the cart topped a rise and revealed the breadth of the rich valley beyond. A small village lay nestled below, flanked by a stone manor house at one end and a steepled church on the other. A score of thatched cottages and longhouses made up the rest of the hamlet, along with a smattering of wooden sheepfolds and small dovecotes.

“‘Tis a cursed place, milord,” the driver said. “Mark my words. It were no pox that has blasted this place.”

“That is what we’ve come to discern.”

A league behind them, the steep road had been closed off by the king’s army. None were allowed forward, but that did not stop rumors of the strange deaths from spreading to the neighboring villages and farmsteads.

“Cursed,” the man mumbled again as he set his cart down the road toward the village. “I heard tell that these lands once belonged to the heathen Celts. Said to be sacred to their pagan ways. Their stones can still be found in the forests off in the highlands up yonder.”

His withered arm pointed toward the woods fringing the high hills that climbed heavenward. Mists clung to those forests, turning the green wood into murky shades of gray and black.

“They’ve cursed this place, I tell you straight. Bringing doom upon those who bear the cross.”

Martin Borr dismissed such superstitions. At thirty-two years of age, he had studied with master scholars from Rome to Britannia. He had come with experts to discover the truth here.

Shifting around, Martin waved the others ahead toward the small hamlet, and the trio set off at a canter. Each knew his duty. Martin followed more slowly, studying and assessing all he passed. Isolated in this small upland valley, the village went by the name Highglen and was known locally for its pottery, forged from mud and clay gathered out of the hot springs that contributed to the mists cloaking the higher forests. It was said that the town’s method of kilning and the composition of the potter’s clay were tightly guarded secrets known only to the guild here.

And now they were lost forever.

The wagon trundled down the road, passing more fields: rye, oats, beans, and rows of vegetables. Some of the fields showed signs of recent harvesting, while others showed evidence of being set to torch.

Had the villagers grown to suspect the truth?

As the wagon continued down into the valley, lines of sheep pens appeared, fringed by tall hedges that half hid the horror within. Woolly mounds, the bloated bodies of hundreds of sheep dotted the overgrown meadows. Closer to the village, pigs and goats also appeared, sprawled and sunken-eyed, dead where they’d dropped. Off in a field, a large-boned ox had collapsed, still tethered to its plow.

As the wagon reached the village green, the town remained silent. No bark of dog greeted them, no crow of rooster, no bray of donkey. The church bell didn’t ring, and no one called out to the strangers entering the village.

A heavy silence pressed down over the place.

As they would discover, most of the dead still lay within their houses, too weak at the end to venture out. But one body sprawled facedown on the green, not far from the manor house’s stone steps. He lay like he might have just fallen, perhaps tripped down the steps and broken his neck. But even from the height of the wagon, Martin noted the gaunt stretch of skin over bone, the hollow eyes sunken into the skull, the thinness of limbs.

It was the same wasting as in the beasts of the field. It was as if the entire village had been under siege and had been starved out.

The clatter of hooves approached. Reginald pulled beside the wagon. “Granaries are all full,” he said, dusting off his palms on his pants. The tall, scarred man had overseen campaigns by King William in the north of France. “Found rats and mice in the bins, too.”

Martin glanced over to him.

“As dead as everything else. Just like that cursed island.”

“But now the wasting has reached our shores,” Martin muttered. “Entered our lands.”

It was the reason they’d all been sent here, why the village road was under guard, and why their group had been sworn to secrecy with binding oaths.

“Girard found you a good body,” Reginald said. “Fresher than most. A boy. He’s set ‘im up in the smithy.” His heavy arm pointed to a wooden barn with a stacked-stone chimney.

Martin nodded and climbed out of the wagon. He had to know for sure, and there was only one way to find out. As royal coroner, this was his duty, to discern the truth from the dead. Though at the moment, he’d leave the bloodiest work to the French butcher.

Martin crossed to the smithy’s open door. Girard stood inside, hunched before the cold forge. The Frenchman had labored in King William’s army, where he’d sawed off limbs and done his best to keep the soldiers alive.

Girard had cleared a table in the center of the smithy and already had the boy stripped and tied to the table. Martin stared at the pale, emaciated figure. His own son was about the same age, but the manner of this death had aged the poor lad here, made him seem wizened well beyond his eight or nine years.

As Girard prepared his knives, Martin examined the boy more closely. He pinched the skin and noted the lack of fat beneath. He examined the cracked lips, the flaky patches of hair loss, the swollen ankles and feet; but mostly he ran his hands over the protuberant bones, as if trying to read a map with his fingers: ribs, jaw, eye socket, pelvis.

What had happened?

Martin knew any real answers lay much deeper.

Girard crossed to the table with a long silver blade in his hand. “Shall we get to work, monsieur?”

Martin nodded.

A quarter hour later, the boy’s corpse lay on the board like a gutted pig. The skin, splayed from groin to gullet, had been pulled and tacked to the wooden table. Intestines lay nestled and curled tight in the bloodied cavity, bloated and pink. From under the ribs, a brownish-yellow liver swelled outward, too large for one so small, for one so wasted to bone and gristle.

Girard reached into the belly of the boy. His hands vanished into the gelid depths.

On the far side, Martin touched his forehead and mouthed a silent prayer of forgiveness for this trespass. But it was too late for absolution from the boy. All the lad’s body could do was confirm their worst fears.

Girard hauled forth the boy’s stomach, rubbery and white, from which hung a swollen purple spleen. With a few slices of his knife, the Frenchman freed the section of gut and dropped it on the table. Another whispery slip of blade and the stomach was laid open. A rich green mix of undigested bread and grain spilled over the board, like some foul horn of plenty.

A fetid smell rolled out, ripe and potent. Martin covered his mouth and nose—not against the stench, but against the horrible certainty.

“Starved to death, that is plain,” Girard said. “But the boy starved with a full belly.”

Martin stepped back, his limbs going cold. Here was his proof. They would have to examine others to be certain. But the deaths here seemed to be the same as those on the island, a place marked in red ink as “wasted” in the Domesday Book.

Martin stared at the gutted boy. Here was the secret reason the survey had been undertaken to begin with. To search for this blight on their homeland, to stamp it out before it spread. The deaths were the same as on that lonely island. The deceased appeared to eat and eat, yet they still starved to death, finding no nourishment, only a continual wasting.

Needing air, Martin turned from the table and stepped out of shadows and into sunshine. He stared across at the rolling hills, green and fertile. A wind swept down and combed through the fields of barley and oats, wheat and rye. He pictured a man adrift in the ocean, dying of thirst, with water all around him but unable to drink.

This was no different.

Martin shivered in the wan sunlight, wanting to be as far away from this valley as possible, but a shout drew his attention to the right, toward the other end of the village green. A figure dressed all in black stood before an open door. For a moment, Martin feared it was Death himself, but then the figure waved, shattering the illusion. It was Abbot Orren, the final member of their group, the head of the Abbey of Kells in Ireland. He stood at the entrance to the village church.

“Come see this!” the abbot shouted.

Martin stumbled toward him. It was more a reflex than a conscious effort. He did not want to return to the smithy. He would leave the boy to the care of the French butcher. Martin crossed the village green, climbed the steps, and joined the Catholic monk.

“What is it, Abbot Orren?”

The man turned and headed into the church. “Blasphemy,” the Irish abbot spat out, “to defile the place in such a manner. No wonder they were all slain.”

Martin hurried after the abbot. The man was skeletally thin and ghostly in his oversized traveling cloak. Of them all, he was the only one to have visited the island off the coast of Ireland, to have seen the wasting there, too.

“Did you find what you were seeking?” Martin asked.

The abbot did not answer and stepped back into the crude church. Martin had no choice but to follow. The interior was gloomy, a cheerless place with an earthen floor covered in rushes. There were no benches, and the roof was low and heavily raftered. The only light came from a pair of high thin windows at the back of the church. They cast dusty streaks of light upon the altar, which was a single slab of stone. An altar cloth must have once covered the raw stone, but it had been torn away and cast to the floor, most likely by the abbot in his search.

Abbot Orren crossed to the altar and pointed to the bare stone with a trembling arm. His shoulders shook with his anger. “Blasphemy,” he repeated, “to carve these heathen symbols upon our Lord’s house.”

Martin closed the distance and leaned closer to the altar. The stone had been inscribed with sunbursts and spirals, with circles and strange knotted shapes, all clearly pagan.

“Why would these pious people commit such a sin?”

“I don’t think it was the villagers of Highglen,” Martin said.

He ran his hand over the altar. Under his fingertips, he sensed the age of the markings, the worn nature of the inscribed shapes. These were clearly old. Martin remembered his driver’s assertion that this place was cursed, that it was hallowed ground to the ancient Celtic people, and that their giant stones could be found hidden in the misty highland forests.

Martin straightened. One of those stones must have been hauled to Highglen and used to form the altar of the village church.

“If it’s not the people here who did it, then how do you explain this?” the abbot asked. He moved to the wall behind the altar and waved an arm to encompass the large marking there. It had been painted recently, and from the brownish-red color, possibly with blood. It depicted a circle with a cross cutting through it.

Martin had seen such markings on burial stones and ancient ruins. It was a sacred symbol of the Celtic priesthood.

“A pagan cross,” Martin said.

“We found the same on the island, marked on all the doors.”

“But what does it mean?”

The abbot fingered the silver cross at his own neck. “It is as the king feared. The snakes who plagued Ireland, who were driven off our island by Saint Patrick, have come to these shores.”

Martin knew the abbot was not referring to true serpents of the field but to the pagan priests who carried staffs curled like snakes, to the Druid leaders of the ancient Celtic people. Saint Patrick had converted or driven off the pagans from Ireland’s shores.

But that had been six centuries ago.

Martin turned to stare out of the church toward the dead village. Girard’s words echoed in his head. The boy starved with a full belly.

None of it made any sense.

The abbot mumbled behind him. “It must all be burned. The soil sowed with salt.”

Martin nodded, but a worry grew in his breast. Could any flame truly destroy what was wrought here? He did not know for sure, but he was certain about one thing.

This was not over.

Present Day
October 8, 11:55 P.M.
Vatican City

Father Marco Giovanni hid in a dark forest of stone.

The massive marble pillars held up the roof of Saint Peter’s Basilica and sectioned off the floor into chapels, vaults, and niches. Works of the masters filled the hallowed space: Michelangelo’s Pietà, Bernini’s Baldacchino, the bronze statue Saint Peter Enthroned.

Marco knew he wasn’t alone in this stone forest. There was a hunter with him, lying in wait, most likely near the rear of the church.

Three hours ago he had received word from a fellow archaeologist who also served the Church, his former mentor at the Gregorian University in Rome. He’d been told to meet him here at midnight.

However, it had proved to be a trap.

With his back against a pillar, Marco held his right hand clamped under his left arm, stanching the bleeding along his left side. He’d been cut down to the ribs. Hot liquid flowed over his fingers. His left hand clutched the proof he needed, an ancient leather satchel no larger than a coin purse. He held tight to it.

As he shifted to peer down the nave, more blood flowed. It splattered to the marble floor. He could wait no longer, or he’d grow too weak. Saying a silent prayer, he pushed off the pillar and fled down the dark nave toward the papal altar. Each pounding step was a fresh stab in his side. But he hadn’t been cut with any knife. The arrow had imbedded itself in the neighboring pew after slicing open his side. The weapon had been short, stubby, black. A steel crossbow bolt. From his hiding place, Marco had studied it. A small red diode had glowed at its base, like some fiery eye in the dark.

Not knowing what else to do, Marco simply fled, staying low. He knew he would most likely die, but the secret he held was more important than his own life. He had to survive long enough to reach the far exit, find one of the patrolling Swiss Guards, and get word to the Holy See.

Ignoring his pain and terror, he ran.

The papal altar lay directly ahead. The bronze canopy over it, designed by Bernini, rested on twisted columns. Marco flanked to the left of it, aiming for the transept on that side. He spotted the massive Monument to Alexander VII and the doorway sheltered beneath it.

It was the exit out onto Piazza Santa Marta.

If only—

A punch to his belly ended any hope. He fell back a step and glanced down. No fist had struck him. A steel shaft tipped by plastic feathers stuck out of his shirt. Pain came a breath later, shattering outward. Like the first arrow, this crossbow bolt also glowed with a fiery eye. The diode rested atop a square chamber at the base of the shaft.

Marco stumbled backward. A shift of shadows near the door revealed a figure dressed in the motley clothing of a Swiss Guard, surely a disguise. The assassin lowered his crossbow and stepped out from the sheltered doorway where he’d lain in wait.

Marco retreated to the altar and made ready to flee back down the nave. But he spotted another man garbed in a Swiss uniform. The man bent near a pew and yanked the imbedded bolt from the wood.

With terror overwhelming the pain in his belly, Marco turned toward the right transept, but again he was thwarted. A third figure stepped from the shadows of a confessional box, lifting another crossbow.

He was trapped.

The basilica was shaped like a crucifix, and three of its legs were now blocked by assassins. That left only one direction to flee. Toward the apse, the head of the cross. But it was a dead end.

Still, Marco hurried into the apse.

Ahead rose the Altar of the Chair of Peter, a massive gilt monument of saints and angels that housed the wooden seat of Saint Peter. Above it, an oval alabaster window revealed the Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove.

But the window was dark and offered no hope.

Marco turned his back on the window and searched around him. To his left sat the tomb of Urban VIII. A statue of the grim reaper in the form of a skeleton climbed from the pope’s marble crypt, heralding the final fate of all men … and perhaps Marco’s own doom.

Marco whispered in Latin, “Lilium et Rosa.”

The Lily and the Rose.

Back in the twelfth century, an Irish saint named Malachy had a vision of all the popes from his century to the end of the world. According to his vision, there would be 112 popes in total. He described each with a short cryptic phrase. In the case of Urban VIII—who was born five centuries after Malachy’s death—the pope was named “the lily and the rose.” And like all such prophecies, the description proved accurate. Pope Urban VIII had been born in Florence, whose coat of arms was the red lily.

But what was most disturbing of all was that the current pope was next-to-last on Saint Malachy’s list. According to the prophecy, the next leader of the Church would be the one to see the world end.

Marco had never believed such fancies before—but with his fingers clutched tight around the tiny leather satchel, he wondered how close they truly were to Armageddon.

Footsteps warned Marco. One of the assassins was closing in. He had only enough time for one move.

He acted quickly. Stanching his bleeding to leave no trace, he moved off to the side to hide what must be preserved. Once done, he returned to the center of the apse. With no other recourse, he dropped to his knees to await his death. The footsteps neared the altar. A figure moved into view. The man stopped and stared around.

It was not one of the assassins.

And not even a stranger.

Marco groaned with recognition, which drew the newcomer’s attention. The man stiffened in surprise, then hurried over.

“Marco?”

Too weak to gain his feet, all Marco could do was stare, momentarily trapped between hope and suspicion. But as the man rushed toward him, his bearing was plainly full of concern. He was Marco’s former teacher, the man who had set up this midnight rendezvous.

“Monsignor Verona …,” Marco gasped, setting aside any suspicions, knowing in his heart that this man would never betray him. Marco lifted an arm and raised an empty hand. His other hand clutched the feathered end of the crossbow bolt still imbedded in his belly.

A single flicker of light drew Marco’s attention downward. He watched the red diode on the crossbow bolt suddenly blink to green.

No …

The explosion blew Marco across the marble floor. He left a trail of blood, smoke, and a smear of entrails. His belly was left a gutted ruin as he fell to his side at the foot of the altar. His eyes rolled and settled on the towering gilt monument above him.

A name rose hazily to his mind.

Petrus Romanus.

Peter the Roman.

That was the final name on Saint Malachy’s prophetic list, the man who would follow the current Holy Father and become the last pope on earth.

With Marco’s failure this night, such a doom could not be stopped.

Marco’s vision darkened. His ears grew deaf. He had no strength left to speak. Lying on his side, he stared across the apse to the tomb of Pope Urban, to the bronze skeleton climbing out of the pope’s crypt. From its bony finger, Marco had hung the tiny satchel that he’d protected for so long. He pictured the ancient mark burned into its leather.

It held the only hope for the world.

He prayed with his last breath that it would be enough.

FIRST

THE SPIRAL AND THE CROSS

Tuesday, May 9—For immediate release

VIATUS SETS SIGHTS ON WORLDWIDE FOOD SECURITY

OSLO, NORWAY (BUSINESS WIRE)—Viatus International, the world’s market-leading petrochemical company, announced today the creation of its new Crop Biogenetics Research and Development Division.

“The mission of the new division is to develop technologies that will boost agricultural productivity to meet the rising global demand for food, feed, and fuel,” said Ivar Karlsen, CEO of Viatus International.

“With the establishment of our company’s Crop Biogenics division,” Karlsen said, “we intend to meet this challenge with all our resources, establishing the equivalent of an agricultural Manhattan Project. Failure is not an option—not for our company, not for the world.”

In recent years, the company’s patented hybridization and transgenic technologies have increased grain, corn, and rice yields by 35 percent. Karlsen said Viatus anticipates doubling its improved yield rate within the next five years.

Karlsen explained the necessity for such a new division during his keynote speech today at the World Food Summit in Buenos Aires. Citing the World Health Organization, he noted that one-third of the world is facing starvation. “We are in a global food crisis,” he said. “Most of those suffering are in the Third World. Food riots are spreading worldwide and further destabilizing dangerous regions around the globe.”

Food security, Karlsen said, has surpassed oil and water as one of the new millennium’s greatest crises and challenges. “Both from a humanitarian standpoint and from a concern about global security, it is vital to hasten food production through innovation and biotechnology.”

Leading the way in agricultural innovation: Viatus International is a Fortune 100 company based in Oslo, Norway. Founded in 1802, Viatus provides products in 180 countries around the globe, enhancing lives and life quality through research and innovation. It is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol VI. The name Viatus is based on the Latin via, the way, and vita, life.

1
October 9, 4:55 A.M.
Mali, West Africa

Gunfire woke Jason Gorman from a bone-deep sleep. It took him an extra half breath to remember where he was. He’d been dreaming of swimming in the lake at his father’s vacation house in upstate New York. But the mosquito netting that cocooned his cot and the predawn chill of the desert jolted him back to the present.

Along with the screams.

His heart hammering, he kicked away the thin sheet and tore through the netting. Inside the Red Cross tent-cabin, it was pitch-dark, but through the tarp walls, a flickering red glow marked a fire somewhere on the east side of the refugee camp. More flames licked into existence, dancing across all four walls of the tent.

Oh, God…

Though panicked, Jason knew what was happening. He’d been briefed about this before heading to Africa. Over the past year, other refugee camps had been attacked by the Tuareg rebel forces and raided for food. With the price of rice and maize trebled across the Republic of Mali, the capital had been besieged by riots. Food was the new gold in the northern districts of the country. Three million people faced starvation.

It was why he had come here.

His father sponsored the experimental farm project that took up sixty acres on the north side of the camp, funded by the Viatus Corporation and overseen by crop biologists and geneticists from Cornell University. They had test fields of genetically modified corn growing out of the parched soils of the region. The first fields had been harvested just last week, grown with only a third of the water normally necessary for irrigation. Word must have spread to the wrong ears.

Jason burst out of his tent in his bare feet. He still wore the khaki shorts and loose shirt he’d had on when he fell into bed last night. In the predawn darkness, firelight was the only source of illumination.

The generators must’ve been taken down.

Automatic gunfire and screams echoed through the darkness. Shadowy figures dashed and pushed all around, refugees running in a panic. But the flow was turbulent, heading this way and that. With rifle blasts and the staccato of machine-gun fire arising from all sides, no one knew in which direction to flee.

Jason did.

Krista was still at the research facility. Three months ago he had met her back in the States during his stateside briefing. She had begun sharing Jason’s mosquito-netted cocoon only last month. But last night she had stayed behind. She had planned to spend the entire night finishing some DNA assays on the newly harvested corn.

He had to reach her.

Pushing against the tide, Jason headed toward the north side of the camp. As he feared, the gunfire and flames were the most intense there. The rebels intended to raid the harvest. As long as no one tried to stop them, no one had to die. Let them have the corn. Once they had it, they would vanish into the night as quickly as they’d come. The corn was going to be destroyed anyway. It wasn’t even meant for human consumption until further studies were done.

Turning a corner, Jason fell over the first body, a teenage boy, sprawled in the alley between the ramshackle hovels that passed for homes here. The teenager had been shot and trampled over. Jason crabbed away from his body and gained his feet. He fled away.

After another frantic hundred yards, he reached the northern edge of the camp. Bodies were sprawled everywhere, piled on one another, men, women, children. It was a slaughterhouse. Some bodies had been torn in half by machine-gun fire. Across the killing field, the research camp’s Quonset huts stood like dark ships mired in the West African savannah. No lights shone there—only flames.

Krista…

Jason remained frozen in place. He wanted to continue onward, cursing his cowardice. But he couldn’t move. Tears of frustration rose to his eyes.

Then a thump-thump rose behind him. He twisted around as a pair of helicopters flew low toward the besieged camp, hugging the terrain. It had to be government forces from the nearby base. The Viatus Corporation had scattered bushels of U.S. dollars to insure extra protection for the site.

A shuddering breath escaped Jason. The helicopters would surely chase off the rebels. More confident, he headed across the field. Still, he kept low as he ran. He aimed for the back of the closest Quonset hut, less than a hundred yards away. Deeper shadows would hide him there, and Krista’s lab was in the next hut over. He prayed she’d kept herself hidden inside there.

As he reached the Quonset’s rear wall, bright light flared behind him. A brilliant searchlight speared out of the lead helicopter and swept across the refugee camp below. Jason let out a rattling sigh.

That should scare off the rebels.

Then, from both sides of the helicopter, the chatter of machine-gun fire blasted out and ripped into the camp. Jason’s blood iced. This was no surgical strike against invading rebel forces. This was a wholesale slaughter of the camp.

The second helicopter swung to the other side, circling outward along the periphery of the camp. From its rear hatch, barrels rolled out and exploded on impact, casting up gouts of flames into the sky. Screams erupted even louder. Jason spotted one man fleeing off into the desert, naked, but with his skin still on fire. The firebombing spread toward Jason’s position.

He turned and ran past the Quonset hut.

The fields and granaries spread ahead of him, but no safety would be found there. Dark figures moved on the far side of the corn rows. Jason would have to risk a final dash across the open to reach Krista’s research lab. The windows were dark, and the only door faced the open fields.

He paused to steady himself. One fast dash and he could be inside the hut. But before he could move, new jets of flame burst forth on the far side of the field. A line of men bearing flamethrowers set off down the rows of corn, burning the fields that had yet to be harvested.

What the hell’s happening?

Off to the right, the single granary tower exploded in a fiery whirlwind that spiraled high into the air. Shocked, but using the distraction, Jason dashed to the Quonset hut’s open door and dove through it.

In the glow of the fires, the room looked unmolested, almost tidy. The back half of the hut was full of all manner of scientific equipment used in genetic and biological research: microscopes, centrifuges, incubators, thermocyclers, gel electrophoresis units. To the right were cubicles with wireless laptops, satellite uplink equipment, even battery backup units.

A single laptop, still powered by the batteries, glowed with a screensaver. It rested in Krista’s cubicle, but there was no sign of his girlfriend.

Jason hurried to the cubicle and brushed his thumb over the touch-pad. The screensaver vanished, replaced with a view of an open e-mail account. Again it was Krista’s.

Jason stared around the hut.

Krista must have fled, but where?

Jason quickly accessed his own e-mail account and toggled the address for his father’s office on Capitol Hill. Holding his breath, he typed rapidly as he described the attack in a few terse sentences. In case he didn’t make it, he wanted some record. Just before he hit the Send button, he had a moment of insight. Krista’s files were still up on the screen. He dragged them, attached them to his note, and hit Send. She would not want them lost.

The e-mail failed to immediately transmit. The attached file was huge and would take an extra minute to upload. He couldn’t wait. Jason hoped the battery pack would last long enough for the e-mail to go through.

Fearful of waiting any longer, Jason swung toward the door. He had no way of knowing where Krista had gone. He hoped she had fled into the surrounding desert. That was what he was going to do. Out there were mazes of gullies and dry washes. He could hide for days if necessary.

As he hurried toward the exit, a dark figure appeared and blocked the doorway. Jason fell back with a gasp. The figure stepped into the hut and whispered in surprise.

“Jase?”

Relief flushed through him. “Krista …”

He hurried to her, his arms wide to take her in. They could still both escape.

“Oh, Jason, thank God!”

His relief matched hers—until she lifted a pistol and fired three times into his chest. The shots felt like punches, knocking him backward to the floor. Fiery pain followed, turning the night even darker. Distantly he heard gunfire, explosions, and more screams.

Krista leaned over him. “Your tent was empty. We thought you’d escaped.”

He coughed, unable to answer as blood filled his mouth.

Seemingly satisfied with his silence, she turned on a heel and headed back out into the nightmare of fire and death. She stopped, momentarily silhouetted against the flaming fields, then vanished into the night.

Jason struggled to comprehend.

Why?

As darkness folded over him, he would have no answer to his question, but he alone heard one last thing. The laptop in the neighboring cubicle chimed. His message had been sent.

2
October 10, 7:04 A.M.
Prince William Forest Virginia

He needed more speed.

Hunched over the narrow handlebars of the motorcycle, Commander Grayson Pierce flew the bike around a sharp corner. He leaned his six-foot frame into the curve, nearly shearing off his kneecap as he laid the bike low around the turn.

The engine roared as he opened the throttle and straightened his trajectory. His target raced fifty yards ahead of him, riding a smaller Honda crotch rocket. Gray pursued on an older-model Yamaha V-Max. Both bikes were powered by V-4 engines, but his motorcycle was larger and weighed more. If he was going to catch his target, he would need every bit of skill.

And maybe a bit of luck.

They’d reached a short straightaway through the parklands of Prince William Forest. A dense line of hardwoods framed the two-lane road. The mix of towering beech and aspen made for a handsome scenic drive, especially now, in October, when the leaves were changing. Unfortunately, a storm last night had blown most of those leaves into patches of slippery mire on the blacktop.

Gray snapped the throttle wider. Acceleration kicked him in the pants. With the slightest wobble, the bike rocketed down the straight stretch, turning the center line into a blur.

But his target was also taking advantage of the straight road. So far, most of Route 619 had been a roller-coaster ride of sudden turns, deadly switchbacks, and rolling hills. The hour-long chase had been brutal, but Gray could not let the other rider escape.

As his target slowed for the next turn, the distance between them narrowed. Gray refused to let up. Maybe it was foolhardy, but he knew his bike’s capabilities. Since acquiring it, he’d had one of the robotics engineers from DARPA—the Defense Department’s research and development branch—outfit the motorcycle with a few modifications.

They owed him a favor.

Gray’s own outfit—designated Sigma—served as the muscle behind DARPA. The team consisted of former Special Forces soldiers who had been retrained in various scientific disciplines to act as its field operatives.

One of the modifications to the bike was a head’s-up display built into his helmet. Across his face shield, data flickered on the left side, noting speed, RPM, gear, oil temperature. On the right side, a navigational map scrolled data that projected best possible gear ratios and speeds to match the terrain.

From the corner of his eye, Gray watched the tachometer slip into the red zone. The navigational array blinked a warning. He was coming at the corner too fast.

Ignoring the data, Gray kept hard on the throttle.

The distance between the two bikes narrowed further.

Thirty yards now separated them as they hit the curve.

Ahead, the rider tilted his bike and roared around the bend. Seconds later, Gray hit the same turn. He sought to eke out another yard by hugging tighter around the blind corner, skimming the center yellow line. Luckily, at this early hour the roads through here were empty of traffic.

Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for the wildlife.

Around the corner, a black bear crouched at the shoulder of the road with a cub at her side. Both noses were buried in a McDonald’s bag. The first motorcycle sped past the pair. The noise and sudden appearance startled the mother bear into rearing up, and the cub acted on pure instinct and fled—right into the road.

Gray could not get out of the way in time. With no choice, he swung the bike into a hard skid. His tires smoked across the blacktop. As he hit the soft loam of the opposite shoulder, he let the bike drop and kicked away. Momentum slid him across the moist leaves on his back for a good twenty feet. Behind him, the bike hit an oak with a resounding crash.

Coming to a stop in a wet gulley, Gray twisted around. He could see the hind end of the mother bear hightailing it into the woods, followed by her cub. Apparently they’d had enough fast food for one day.

A new noise intruded.

The roar of a motorcycle, coming up fast.

Gray sat straighter. Down the road, his target had swung around and was barreling back toward him.

Oh, great…

Gray ripped away the chinstraps and tugged off his helmet.

The other cycle rocketed up to his position and braked hard in front of him, lifting up on its front tire. The rider was short, but muscled like a pit bull. As the bike came to a stop, the rider pulled off his helmet, too, revealing a head shaved to the skin. He frowned down at Gray.

“Still in one piece?”

The rider was Monk Kokkalis, a fellow operative with Sigma and Gray’s best friend. The man’s stony features were carved into an expression of concern and worry.

“I’m fine. Hadn’t expected a bear in the road.”

“Who does?” Monk cracked a wide grin as he booted his kickstand into place and climbed off the bike. “But don’t go thinkin’ of welshing on our bet. You set no rules against natural obstacles. Dinner’s on you after the conference. Porterhouses and the darkest ale they have at that steak-house by the lake.”

“Fine. But I want a rematch. You had an unfair advantage.”

“Advantage? Me?” Monk stripped off one of his gloves to expose his prosthetic hand. “I’m missing my hand. Along with a fair amount of my long-term memory. And been on disability for a year. Some advantage!”

Still, the grin never wavered as Monk offered his DARPA-engineered prosthetic. Gray took the hand, feeling the cold plastic fasten firmly on him. Those same fingers could crush walnuts. Monk pulled him to his feet.

As Gray brushed wet leaves from his Kevlar motorcycle suit, his cell phone chimed from his breast pocket. He pulled it out and checked the Caller ID. His jaw tightened.

“It’s HQ,” he told Monk and lifted the phone to his ear. “Commander Pierce here.”

“Pierce? About time you picked up. I’ve called you four times in the past hour. And may I ask what you are doing in the middle of a forest in Virginia?” It was Gray’s boss, Painter Crowe, director of Sigma.

Fighting for some adequate explanation, Gray glanced back at his motorcycle. The bike’s GPS must have betrayed his location. Gray struggled to explain, but he had no adequate excuse. He and Monk had been sent from Washington to Quantico to attend an FBI symposium on bioterrorism. Today was the second day, and Gray and Monk had decided to skip the morning lectures.

“Let me guess,” Painter continued. “Out doing a little joyriding?”

“Sir …”

The sternness in the director’s voice softened. “So did it help Monk?”

As usual, Painter had surmised the truth. The director had an uncanny ability to assess a situation. Even this one.

Gray looked over at his friend. Monk stood with his arms locked across his chest, his face worried. It had been a hard year for him. He had been brutalized in an enemy’s research facility where a part of his brain had been cut out, destroying his memory. Though he had recovered what was left, gaps remained, and Gray knew it still haunted him.

Over the last two months, Monk had been slowly acclimating back to his duties with Sigma, restricted though they might be. He was on desk duty and offered only minor assignments here in the States. He was limited to gathering intel and evaluating data, often beside his wife, Captain Kat Bryant, who also worked at Sigma headquarters and had a background in Naval Intelligence.

Gray knew Monk was straining at the bit to do more, to gain back the life that had been stolen from him. Everyone treated him as if he were a fragile piece of porcelain, and he’d begun to bristle at all the sympathetic glances and whispered words of encouragement.

So Gray had suggested this cross-country race through the park that bordered the Quantico Marine Corps Reservation. It offered a chance to blow off some steam, to get a little grit in the face, to take some risk.

Gray covered the phone with his hand and mouthed to Monk, “Painter’s pissed.”

His friend’s face broke into a broad grin.

Gray returned the phone to his ear.

“I heard that,” his boss said. “And if you’re both done having your bit of fun, I need you back at Sigma Command this afternoon. Both of you.” “Yes, sir. But can I ask what it’s about?”

A long pause stretched as if the director was weighing what to say. When he spoke, his words were careful. “It’s about the original owner of that motorcycle of yours.”

Gray glanced at the crashed bike. The original owner? He flashed back to a night two years ago, remembering the roar of a motorcycle down a suburban street, running with no lights, bearing a deadly rider, an assassin of mixed loyalties.

Gray swallowed to gain his voice. “What about her?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

1:00 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Hours later, Gray had showered, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, and sat in the satellite surveillance room of Sigma headquarters. He shared the space with Painter and Monk. On the screen shone a digital map. It traced a crooked red line from Thailand to Italy.

The path of the assassin ended in Venice.

Sigma had been tracking her for over a year. Her location was marked by a small red triangle on a computer monitor. It glowed in the middle of a satellite map of Venice. Buildings, crooked streets, and winding canals were depicted in precise gray-scale detail, down to the tiny gondolas frozen in place, capturing a moment in time. That time was shown in the corner of the computer monitor, along with the approximate longitude and latitude of the assassin’s location:

10:52:45 GMT OCT 9
LAT 41°52’56.97"N
LONG 12°29’5.19"E

“How long has she been in Venice?” Gray asked. “Over a month.”

Painter ran a tired hand through his hair and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He looked exhausted. It had been a difficult year for the director. Pale from spending much of the day in offices and meetings, Painter’s mixed Native American heritage was only evident in the granite planes of his face and the streak of white through his black hair, like a tucked snowy feather.

Gray studied the map. “Do we know where she’s staying?”

Painter shook his head. “Somewhere in the Santa Croce area. It’s one of the oldest neighborhoods of Venice, not very touristy. A maze of bridges, alleys, and canals. An easy place to keep hidden.”

Monk sat back from the other two, adjusting the connection of his prosthetic hand. “So why did Seichan pick that city of all the places in the world to hole up?”

Gray glanced to the corner of the monitor. It displayed a photo of the assassin, a woman in her late twenties. Her features were a mix of Vietnamese and European descent, possibly French, with her bronzed skin, slender features, and full lips. When Gray had first met her three years ago, she’d almost killed him, shooting him point-blank in the chest. Even now he pictured her in that same turtlenecked black bodysuit, recalling how it had hugged her lithe form, hinting at both the hardness and softness that lay beneath.

Gray also pictured their last association. She’d been captured and held prisoner by the U.S. military, badly bloodied and recovering from abdominal surgery. At the time, Gray had helped her escape custody, paying back a debt owed after she had saved his own life—but her freedom had not come without a price.

During the surgery, Gray’s boss had a passive polymer tracker secretly planted in her belly. It was a condition for her release, extra insurance that they’d be able to monitor her location and movements. She was too important to let go, too intimately tied to a shadowy terrorist network known as the Guild. No one knew anything about the true puppetmasters of that organization—only that it was well entrenched and had tendrils and roots globally.

Seichan claimed to be a double agent assigned to infiltrate the Guild and discover who truly ran its operations. Yet she offered no proof except her word. Gray had pretended to allow her to escape, while at the same time he kept silent about the implanted tracker. The device offered U.S. intelligence services a chance to discover more about the Guild.

But Gray suspected her decision to go to ground in Venice had nothing to do with the Guild. He felt Painter Crowe’s gaze on him, as if waiting for him to come up with an answer. His boss’s face was impassive, stoic, but a flicker in those ice-blue eyes suggested that this was a test.

“She’s returning to the scene of the crime,” Gray said and sat straighter.

“What?” Monk asked.

Gray nodded to the map overlay. “The Santa Croce area also houses some of the oldest sections of the University of Venice. Two years ago, she murdered a museum curator in that city, one connected to the same university. Killed him in cold blood. She said it was necessary to protect the man’s family. A wife and daughter.”

Painter confirmed the same. “The child and mother do live in that area. We’ve got people on the ground trying to pinpoint her location. But the tracker is passive. We can’t narrow her location to less than two square miles. In case she shows up, we do have the curator’s family under surveillance. With so many eyes looking for her, she must be maintaining a low profile, possibly using a disguise.”

Gray remembered the strain in Seichan’s face when she had tried to justify the cold-blooded murder of the museum curator. Possibly guilt, rather than the Guild, had drawn her back to Venice. But to what end? And what if he was wrong? What if this was all an artful bit of trickery? Seichan was nothing if not brilliant, an excellent strategist.

He studied the screen.

Something felt wrong about all this.

“Why are you showing me this now?” Gray asked. Sigma had been tracking Seichan for over a year, so why the sudden urgency to call him back to central command?

“Word has filtered down from the NSA, passing through the new head of DARPA and down to us. With no real intelligence gained from Seichan’s freedom this past year, the powers-that-be have lost patience with the operation and have ordered her immediate capture. She’s to be brought in to a black ops interrogation center in Bosnia.”

“But that’s insane. She’ll never talk. Our best chance of discovering anything concrete about the Guild is through this operation.”

“I agree. Unfortunately, we’re the only ones who hold that position. Now if Sean was still heading DARPA …”

Painter’s words trailed off into a place of pain. Dr. Sean McKnight had been the founder of Sigma and the head of DARPA at the time. Last year he’d been killed during an assault on Sigma Command. The new head of DARPA, General Gregory Metcalf, was still fresh to his position, still dealing with the political fallout following the assault. He and Painter had been butting heads ever since. Gray suspected that only the president’s support of Painter Crowe kept the director from being fired. But even that support had its limits.

“Metcalf refuses to ruffle any feathers among the various intelligence communities and has sided with the NSA on this matter.”

“So they’re going to bring her in.”

Painter shrugged. “If they can. But they have no idea who they’re dealing with.”

“I’m between assignments. I could head out there. Offer my help.”

“Help to do what? Help find her or help her get away?”

Gray remained silent, his feelings mixed. He finally spoke firmly. “I’ll do whatever is asked of me,” he said, staring pointedly at Painter.

The director shook his head. “If Seichan sees you or even suspects you’re in Venice, then she’ll know she’s being tracked. We’ll lose all advantage.”

Gray frowned, knowing the director was right.

The phone rang, and Painter picked up the receiver. Gray was glad for the momentary distraction as he fought to settle his thoughts.

“What is it, Brant?” Painter said. As the director listened to his office assistant’s reply, the crease between his eyes deepened. “Patch the call through.”

After a moment, Painter held the phone receiver toward Gray. “It’s Lieutenant Rachel Verona, calling from Rome.”

Gray could not hide his surprise as he accepted the phone and placed it to his ear. He turned slightly away from the other two men.

“Rachel?”

He immediately heard the tears in her voice. There was no sobbing, but her normally crisp fluency was fractured into pieces, catching between words. “Gray … I need your help.”

“Anything. What is it?”

He had not spoken to her in months. For over a year, he’d been romantically involved with the raven-haired lieutenant, even talking marriage, but in the end it had not worked out. She was too tied down to her job with the Italian carabinieri. Likewise, Gray had deep roots both professionally and personally here in the States. The distance proved too great.

“It’s my uncle Vigor,” she said. Her words rushed out as if hurrying ahead of a flood of tears. “Last night. There was an explosion at Saint Peter’s. He’s in a coma.”

“My God, what happened?”

Rachel hurried on. “Another priest was killed, one of his former students. They suspect terrorists. But I don’t … they won’t let me … I didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s okay. I can be out there on the next flight.” Gray glanced back to Painter. His boss nodded, needing no explanation.

Monsignor Vigor Verona had helped Sigma in two earlier operations. His knowledge of archaeology and ancient history had proved vital, along with his intimate connections within the Catholic Church. They owed the monsignor a huge debt.

“Thank you, Gray.” She already sounded calmer. “I’ll forward the investigative file. But there are some details kept out of the report. I’ll fill you in once you’re here.”

As she spoke, Gray’s attention settled on the computer monitor, specifically on the glowing red tracker in the center of Venice. The photo of Seichan stared back at him from the corner of the screen, her expression cold and angry. The assassin also had a past history with Rachel and her uncle.

And now she was back in Italy.

A sense of foreboding jangled through him.

Something was wrong with this whole situation. He sensed a storm brewing out there, but he didn’t know which way the winds were blowing. He knew only one thing for certain.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he promised Rachel.

3
October 10, 7:28 P.M.
Rome, Italy

As Lieutenant Rachel Verona stepped out of the hospital and into the dusky twilight of central Rome, she took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, her anxiety easing a little. The sting of disinfectant had barely masked the odor of bodies languishing in beds. Hospitals always smelled like dread.

For the first time in years, she wished for a cigarette, anything to smoke out the sense of apprehension that had built inside her with every passing hour as her uncle remained in a coma. He was hooked to IV lines; electrodes led to machines that monitored his vital signs; a respirator moved his chest up and down. He looked a decade older, his eyes blackened and bruised, his head shaved and wrapped. The doctors had explained: subdural hemorrhage along with a small skull fracture. They were closely monitoring his intracranial pressure. MRI showed no brain damage, but he remained unconscious, which worried the doctors. According to the medical and police report, Vigor had arrived at the hospital in a semidelirious state. Before he slipped into a coma, he kept repeating one word in a frantic manner.

Morte.

Death.

But what did that mean? Had Vigor known what had happened to the other priest? Or was it just delirium?

No one could ask him. He remained unresponsive.

Still, it bothered her. She had held his hand most of the day, squeezing it occasionally, praying for some sign of recovery. But his fingers remained lax, his skin cold, as if something vital had escaped his body, leaving only this shell behind.

What especially tortured Rachel was that she couldn’t help her uncle. Vigor had practically raised her, and he was the only real family she had left. So she had sat with him all day, only leaving her vigil to make the call to the United States.

Gray would be here by morning.

It was the only bit of good news in the past twenty-four hours. Though she couldn’t help Vigor medically, she could use her resources to discover the truth behind the attack.

At the moment, the investigation into the explosion at Saint Peter’s had turned into a multiagency quagmire, involving everyone from Italian intelligence services to Interpol and Europol. Everyone seemed to have come to the consensus that it was a terrorist attack. This assessment rose mainly from the postmortem mutilation of the dead priest’s body. A strange mark had been burned into his forehead.

Someone had definitely left a message. But what was that message and who had sent it? As of yet, no group had claimed responsibility.

Rachel knew the quickest way to discover the truth was to instigate her own investigation, something with a narrower focus, more surgical than the current chaos generated by the various agencies.

So she had called Gray. Though such a plea for help was awkward on a personal level, she recognized she would need Sigma’s global resources if she hoped to discover the truth. She also recognized that she couldn’t do this alone. She needed someone she could fully trust. She needed Gray.

But was the call to him more than just professional?

She pushed that last thought aside as she crossed the hospital parking garage. Reaching her small blue Mini Cooper, she climbed inside and set off across Rome. She left the top down, and the freshening breeze helped clear her head, until a trundling tour bus swooped ahead of her, belching fumes.

Rachel swung off the main thoroughfare and wound through smaller streets framed by shops, cafés, and restaurants. She had been planning to head over to her apartment, to rest and collect her thoughts before tomorrow, but instead her path wound on its own toward the Tiber River. After a few turns, the shining dome of Saint Peter’s rose into view on the far bank.

She continued to let traffic funnel her toward her goal. All of Vatican City had been closed to the public since the explosion. Even the pope had been shifted for security reasons to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. But all that failed to halt the flow of tourists and onlookers. If anything, curiosity had thickened the throngs.

Due to the congestion, it took Rachel an extra half hour to find a parking spot. By the time she reached the police barricade that cordoned off the famous square, full night had set in. Saint Peter’s Square was usually crowded with the pious and the raucous, but at the moment, it was nearly deserted. Only a few uniformed men patrolled among the columns and in the open piazza. One stood post at the foot of the Egyptian obelisk that rose in the center of the square. They all bore rifles on their shoulders.

Rachel showed her credentials at the barricade.

The policeman frowned. He was middle-aged, thick around the belly, and stood slightly bowlegged. The city police and the militarized carabinieri were not always on the best of terms.

“Why are you here?” he asked brusquely. “Why does this attack concern the Carabinieri Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale?”

It was a fair question. Her agency oversaw the theft of art and the black market trade in antiquities. It had nothing to do with domestic terrorism. She had not been authorized to be here. In fact, due to her connection with one of the victims, she had been specifically warned to keep her distance.

But she had to see the crime scene for herself.

Rachel cleared her throat and pointed forward. “I’m here to catalog and document the site of the explosion, to verify that no art was stolen following the bombing.”

“So, secretarial work.” His voice rippled with disdain. He added under his breath, “No wonder they sent a woman.”

Rachel refused to rise to the bait. She retrieved her credentials. “If you’re done, it’s late and I have much work to do.”

He shrugged and stepped aside, but just barely. She had to brush against him to pass. He leaned into her, pressing, trying to intimidate her with his bulk and size. Rachel knew this game. In an organization that was mostly a male fraternity, she was treated as either a threat or something to be conquered.

Anger flared, momentarily burning through her anxiety and worry. She pushed past the brute, but not before making sure her heel found the man’s instep. She ground down hard as she stepped past him.

He barked in surprise and hopped back.

“Scusi,” she apologized coldly and continued into the square without looking back.

“Zoccola!” he swore at her.

She ignored him as she crossed the empty piazza. To either side, the encircling arms of Bernini’s colonnades embraced her. She found her pace growing quicker as she passed the obelisk and fountains and continued toward the main doors to the basilica. Overhead, the breadth of Michelangelo’s dome glowed against the night sky.

Passing between the giant statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul that stood guard before the basilica, she glanced at the inscription below the sword-bearing apostle Paul. In Hebrew, it read, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” She couldn’t read Hebrew, but it had been her uncle Vigor who had taught her the words as a young girl. She took strength from both that message and the memory of her uncle.

With renewed determination, she climbed the steps to the entrance to Saint Peter’s. She found the doors unlocked. Crossing the church portico, she passed into the cavernous nave of the basilica. It stretched almost two hundred meters ahead of her. The church was dark except for a scatter of flickering votive candles, and at the far end of the nave the papal altar shone with the glow of portable sodium lamps. Even from here, Rachel made out the crisscross of crime tape.

The explosion took place in the apse, the area behind the main altar. She headed down the center aisle, ignoring the wealth of art, architecture, and history all around her. Her attention was focused on her goal.

Reaching the main altar, she stepped to the edge of the crime scene. At this hour, the area was deserted. Over the past two days, the investigators and experts had gone over the site with their evidence bags, brushes, swabs, tubes, and vials of chemicals. It was already known that the explosive charge was a dense form of heptanitrocubane, a new class of powerful energetics.

A shiver passed through Rachel as she stared down at the scorched marble. It was the only sign left of the actual attack. Even the blood had been cleaned off. But the floor was still marked with tape, displaying splatter patterns and estimating force trajectories of the blast. On the far side of the apse, a chalk outline marked where Father Marco Giovanni’s body had come to rest. He was found at the foot of the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter, beneath the alabaster window showing the dove of the Holy Spirit.

Rachel had read the report on the young priest. He’d been a student of her uncle, a fellow Vatican archaeologist. According to the file, he’d spent the past decade in Ireland, researching the roots of Celtic Christianity, studying the early fusion of pagan rituals with the Catholic faith. He concentrated specifically on the mythos surrounding the Black Madonna, a figure often epitomized as the fusion of the pagan Earth Mother with the Virgin Mary.

Why would such an archaeologist be targeted? Or was it random? Had her uncle and his student just been at the wrong place at the wrong time? None of it made sense.

Rachel swallowed and turned. They’d found her uncle crumpled by the papal altar, blown by the blast wave, barely conscious.

Not wanting to contaminate the crime scene, Rachel circled around the outside of the taped-off area. She climbed the two steps to the left side of the apse. There was little room. She edged along the monument to Pope Paul III, with its statues of the virtues, Justice and Prudence, done in the likeness of the deceased pope’s sister and mother.

Her feet slowed.

What am I doing here?

Rachel suddenly grew too conscious of the tomblike quiet of the basilica, of the weight of ages and death, of the stacks of tombs around and below her. It didn’t help that across the apse, on the far side of the crime scene, stood the sepulcher of Pope Urban VIII. A bronze statue of the pope sat atop the monument, his hand raised in blessing. But below his feet rested his tomb, and rising from the top of the tomb was a bronze skeleton. An upraised bony hand was frozen as it wrote the name of the deceased pope on an open scroll. Rachel shivered at the sight.

She was not normally so superstitious, but with Uncle Vigor so near death himself … What if she lost him?

She wanted to turn away, but she found her gaze lingering on the macabre statue, the symbol of death. Then she remembered. A cold wash swept through her, raising goose bumps over her arms.

Death.

She mumbled aloud the one word Vigor had kept repeating in his delirium. “Morte.”

She studied the bronze statue crouched atop the tomb. What if Vigor had been trying to tell them something, something he knew?

Rachel hurried back around the taped-off crime scene to the other side of the apse. She tipped up on her toes to peer more closely at the statue, but though she examined it carefully, she still almost missed it. The brown leather cord was the same color as the aged bronze.

She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and climbed up on the edge of the tomb to reach it. Grasping the cord, she freed a tiny satchel that was half-hidden behind the bony palm of the Grim Reaper. She dropped back down with her prize. Was her discovery of any significance? Or was this some bit of decoration left by a supplicant or tourist?

She noted a mark burned into the leather. It held no significance. It was a crude spiral, like some magic charm.

Disappointed, she turned the small leather pouch over. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw what was burned into the leather on this side.

A circle stamped with a cross.

She had seen this mark before.

In the forensics report on the body of Father Marco Giovanni.

The same symbol had been branded into the forehead of the dead priest. It had to be significant, but what did it mean?

Rachel knew one place to look for an answer. She teased open the pouch and dumped the contents into her palm. She frowned down at the single object. It looked like a small blackened twig. She lifted it closer—and immediately realized her error.

The twig had a fingernail.

Horrified, she almost dropped it.

What she held wasn’t a twig.

It was a human finger.

2:55 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter sat at his desk in his windowless office and rolled a bottle of aspirin between his palms. A dull ache had taken root between his eyeballs, presaging a full-blown migraine. He shook the aspirin bottle and wished for something stronger, perhaps something chased by a tall single-malt Scotch.

Still, he would trade it all for one neck massage by his girlfriend. Unfortunately, Lisa was off on the West Coast, visiting her rock-climbing brother in Yosemite. She wouldn’t be back for another week. On his own, he would have to settle for the comforts of Bayer Extra Strength.

For the past hour he’d been analyzing data and reports, most of which were still posted on the giant LCD wall monitors that surrounded his desk. As he glanced at one of the screens, he wished for the thousandth time that his office had an actual window. Maybe it was that part of him that was half Mashantucket Indian, but he needed some bit of connection to blue skies, trees, and the simple rhythms of an ordinary life.

But that was never going to happen.

His office, along with the rest of Sigma Command, was buried beneath the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall. The covert facility occupied the Castle’s old WWII-era bomb shelters. The location had been picked both for its convenient access to the halls of power and for its proximity to the Smithsonian Institution’s many research facilities.

At the moment, Painter would’ve traded it all for one window. Still, this had been his home for the past few years, and he was very protective of it. After last year’s assault on the facility, Sigma was still recovering. The damage had gone much deeper than just scorched walls and destroyed equipment. Washington politics was a complicated web of power, ambition, and bitter enmities. It was a place where the weak were torn apart by the strong. And fair or not, the assault had damaged Sigma’s position among U.S. intelligence forces.

To make matters worse, Painter suspected that the true masterminds of the attack were still at large. The man who had led the assault, a division chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency, had been dismissed as a rogue agent, but Painter wasn’t so sure. To pull off the assault, someone had to have been supporting him, someone buried even deeper within the web of Washington politics.

But who?

Painter shook his head and glanced at the clock. Such questions would have to wait. In a few minutes, he would be heading into another firestorm. He wasn’t ready to butt heads again, but he had no choice in the matter. He’d already had a heated discussion two hours ago with Gray Pierce. Gray had wanted to bring Monk Kokkalis with him to Italy, but Painter wasn’t convinced Monk was ready for a full operation. Medical and psych had not yet given Gray’s partner a clean bill of health.

Besides, the details were still sketchy coming out of Rome. Painter was unsure which of Sigma’s operatives were best suited for the mission, which scientific discipline would complement Gray’s expertise in biophysics. Monk Kokkalis’s specialty was forensics, and at the moment, such skills did not seem necessary. Recognizing this, Gray had finally acquiesced, but Painter hadn’t sent him out alone. Until further details were gathered, all Gray needed was some muscle.

And that he got.

As Painter pondered taking another aspirin, the intercom chimed on his desk. Brant’s voice followed. “Director, I have General Metcalf holding for you.”

Painter had been expecting the teleconference call. He’d read the classified e-mail from the head of DARPA. With a heavy sigh, he tapped the connection and swung his chair around to face the wall monitor behind him.

The dark screen flickered into full color. The general was seated behind a desk. Gregory Metcalf was African American, a graduate of West Point, and though in his midfifties, he remained as sturdy and hard as when he’d been a linebacker for the Point’s football team. The only signs of his age were his salt-and-pepper hair and a pair of reading glasses held in his left hand. After Metcalf was assigned to head DARPA, Painter quickly learned not to underestimate the man’s intelligence.

But there remained a wariness between the two.

The general shifted forward, and without any preamble asked, “Have you read the report I sent about the conflict in Africa?”

So much for simple courtesy.

Painter motioned to one of the wall monitors. “I have. Along with pulling NATO’s report about the assault on the Red Cross camp. I also did a background check on the corporation running the test farm out there.”

“Very good. Then I won’t have to get you up to speed on the details.”

Painter prickled at the condescension. “But I still don’t understand what this has to do with Sigma.”

“That’s because I haven’t told you yet, Director.”

The ache between Painter’s eyeballs grew sharper.

The general tapped at a keyboard in front of him. The wall screen split away to display a still photo next to the general. The picture showed a young white male, stripped to his boxers and strung up on a wooden cross in the middle of a charred and smoky field. The image was less like a crucifixion and more like a ghoulish scarecrow. In the background, Painter noted the dry African savannah.

“The young man’s name is Jason Gorman,” Metcalf said coldly.

Painter’s brows pulled tightly together. “Gorman. As in Senator Gorman?

The senator’s name had come up during Painter’s research into the Viatus Corporation. Sebastian Gorman was head of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. He was a powerful advocate for the advancement of genetically modified foods as a means to feed the starving world and supply new biofuel resources.

The general cleared his throat, drawing back Painter’s stunned attention. “That is Senator Gorman’s twenty-three-year-old son. The young man had a master’s degree in plant molecular biology and was working toward his doctorate, but he went to Mali mostly to serve as the senator’s eyes and ears on the project over there.”

Painter began to understand why this crisis had risen to the levels it had in Washington. The powerful senator, surely distraught and wanting answers about the death of his son, must be shaking all of Capitol Hill. But still Painter did not understand Sigma’s role in the matter. From the NATO report, the attack had been perpetrated by Tuareg rebels, a brutal force who were constantly plaguing the West African republic.

Metcalf continued, “Senator Gorman received an e-mail message from his son on the morning of the attack. It described the assault in a few terse sentences. From the descriptions of helicopters and napalm bombing, the attack was both militarized and large scale in force and scope.”

Painter sat straighter.

“Attached to the same e-mail was a set of research files. The senator did not understand why they’d been forwarded, nor could he decipher their scientific content. Not knowing what else to do, he sent them to his son’s thesis professor at Princeton University, Dr. Henry Malloy.”

“I’d like to see those files myself,” Painter said, beginning to understand why Sigma had been called into the matter. The strange attack, the cryptic research, all fit the scope of Sigma. Painter’s mind already began charting logistics and a plan of action. “I can have someone out in the field in Mali within twenty-four hours.”

“No. Your role in this matter will be limited.” Metcalf’s voice deepened with an implied threat. “This mess is already escalating into a political shitstorm. Senator Gorman is on a witch-hunt, looking for any and all parties to blame.”

“General—” Painter began.

“And Sigma’s already on fragile ground. One misstep, and no one will be able to pick up the pieces.”

Painter held back a stronger refrain, letting the implied lack of confidence in his group roll off his back. He had to pick and choose which fights to have with this man. This wasn’t one of them.

“So what role do you see for Sigma?”

“To gather intelligence on those files, to determine if it warrants further investigation. And the first place to start is with Dr. Malloy. I want him interviewed, and the files reviewed.”

“I can have a team over there by this afternoon.”

“Very good. But there is one other thing. Something that I’d like you to undertake personally.” “What’s that?”

“One piece of information has been kept quiet for now. I want your take on the matter.” The general tapped at his keyboard, and the photo zoomed in to Jason Gorman’s face. “Whoever strung the boy up mutilated his body.”

Painter stood and moved closer to the wall monitor. A symbol had been burned into the young man’s brow, as if someone had taken a branding iron to him. A circle and a cross.

“I want to know why they did this,” Metcalf said. “And what it means.”

Painter slowly nodded.

So did he.

9:35 P.M.
Rome, Italy

Rachel slid her Mini Cooper into the assigned parking place at her apartment complex. Seated behind the wheel, she took an extra moment to think about what she’d done. On the passenger seat was a small clear plastic bag holding the old leather pouch and its macabre contents.

She had left Saint Peter’s without telling anyone about what she’d discovered.

It’s late, she had justified in her head. I can turn it over to the investigators in the morning. Give a full report then.

But Rachel recognized the deeper truth behind her theft. It had been her uncle’s words that had guided her to the hidden pouch. She had felt a certain possessiveness about that discovery. If she turned the pouch over to the authorities, not only would she be reprimanded for trespassing on a case that was beyond her jurisdiction, but she could be cut totally out of the loop. She might never find out the significance of the pouch. And lastly, she could not ignore a touch of pride about the matter. No one else had found the pouch. She trusted her own gut more than the muddle and chaos that was this international and interdepartmental investigation.

And her gut told her that she was out of her league. She needed help. She would wait until Gray arrived in the morning, get his take on all of this, and go from there.

Settled on a plan of action, Rachel grabbed the evidence bag and shoved it into her jacket. She climbed out of her car and headed for the stairs. Her apartment was on the third floor. Though small, she did have a nice view of the Coliseum from her balcony.

Reaching the third floor landing, she pushed through the stairwell door. As she headed down the hallway, she noted two things. Mrs. Rosselli was cooking with too much garlic again, and a glow shone out from under her own door.

Rachel stopped. She always turned off her lights before leaving her apartment. But then again, she had been upset this morning. Maybe she had forgotten.

Not taking any chances, she lifted a bit on her toes and crept silently down the hallway. This city was plagued by thieves and pickpockets, and break-ins were not uncommon in this area. Her eyes remained fixed on the bar of light under her door. As she drew closer, a shadow passed across the glow.

Rachel’s skin went cold. Someone was in her apartment.

Swearing under her breath, she backed away. She had no weapon. She considered knocking on Mrs. Rosselli’s door, getting out of the hallway, but the garlic already stung her nose. Inside the old woman’s cramped apartment, the fumes would be blinding. Instead, she reached into a pocket and pulled out her cell phone.

She retreated to the stairwell door and shoved through it, keeping an eye on her door. As she stepped onto the landing, something cold pressed against the bare nape of her neck.

She recognized the barrel of a pistol.

A hard voice confirmed the threat. “Don’t move.”

4
October 10, 3:28 P.M.
Rockville, Maryland

Monk bounced his baby girl on his knee. Penelope squealed, wearing a goofy smile that plainly came from her father. Luckily that’s all she got from him. Her light auburn curls and delicate features were all from her mother.

“Monk, if you make her spit up …!”

Kat crossed out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. She still wore her dress blues. She had come back from Capitol Hill an hour ago, where she’d been canvassing some former intelligence contacts on behalf of Sigma, helping Painter Crowe shore up some political breeches. Her only concession to being home was to unpin her hair and let its full cascade drape below her shoulders.

Monk remained in his sweatpants and T-shirt. Since dropping Gray off at the airport, he’d come straight back to their new home in the Maryland suburbs. What else was there to do? He knew Gray had gone to bat for him, tried to get him on board for the investigation in Italy. But that had been a wash.

He shifted the baby onto his lap.

“I have her bottle warmed up,” Kat said, heading toward him with her arms out to take Penelope. She suddenly tripped, hopped a step, and caught her balance. She stared down at the floor. “Monk, how many times have I told you not to leave your hand just lying around?”

Monk rubbed the stub of his wrist. “The new prosthetic still chafes.”

Kat sighed heavily and took Penelope. “Do you know how much one of those costs?”

Monk shrugged. The DARPA-designed prosthetic was a marvel of bioengineering, incorporating the latest in mechanics and actuators, allowing sensory feedback and surgically precise movements. Additionally, the stumped end of Monk’s wrist was encased in a polysynthetic cuff, surgically attached and wired into nerve bundles and muscle tendons.

Monk manipulated the titanium contacts on his wrist sheath. On the floor, the disembodied hand lifted onto its fingertips, powered wirelessly from the controls in the sheath. The prosthetic hand might be the brawn, but the wrist cuff was its brain. Monk directed the hand back to the couch, picked it up, and reattached it to his wrist. He flexed his fingers.

“It still chafes,” he mumbled.

Kat began to turn toward the kitchen, but Monk patted the seat next to him. Kat sighed again and joined him. Monk pulled her closer, catching a whiff of her hair and the scent of jasmine. She leaned into him. They sat quietly together. Penelope dozed off, a fist curled to her lips. It was nice to hold his entire family in a single embrace.

Kat finally spoke, softly and gently. “Sorry about Italy.”

Monk rolled his eyes. He hadn’t said a word about the matter to her. It was a touchy subject between them. But he should’ve known she would find out. With all her contacts in the intelligence communities, it was hard to keep any secrets from her.

She turned to face him. He recognized the play of mixed emotions in the soft concern of her eyes and the worried line of her lips. She knew how much he wanted to get back out into the field, but her fear for him was plain to read. He glanced down at his prosthetic hand. It wasn’t a baseless fear.

Still, he loved his job and knew how important it was.

For the past year, while recuperating from his injuries—both mental and physical—he had grown to recognize this more fully. While he loved his family and acknowledged his responsibilities here, he also knew how vital Sigma was to keeping the world safe. He hated being sidelined.

“I heard you have another assignment today,” Kat said.

“Just more paper-pushing,” he groused. “I’m off to New Jersey to interview an egghead about some research files at Princeton. I’ll be back by midnight.”

Kat glanced down at her watch. “Then shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

“I have time. Director Crowe is sending another agent to tag along. Someone with a background in genetics. A new recruit.”

“John Creed.”

Monk shifted and stared her in the face. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

She smiled, leaned over, and kissed him. “I know that Penelope’s bottle is getting cold.”

Monk’s prosthetic hand tightened on her shoulder, keeping her from getting up. “And I know her bottle can be warmed up again.” His voice grew huskier. “And I still have another half hour.”

“A whole half hour?” She arched an eyebrow. “You are growing ambitious.”

Monk’s face broke into a cockeyed grin. “Don’t mock me, woman.”

She kissed him again, lingering now, and whispered between his lips. “Never.”

4:44 P.M.
Princeton, New Jersey

Alone in the basement laboratory, Dr. Henry Malloy ran the computer simulation for the third time. As he waited, he shook his head. It made no sense. He sat back and stretched. He’d been compiling the data sent from Senator Gorman’s office for the past twenty-four hours. Due to the volume of raw data, he needed the lab’s Affymetrix array station to analyze all the DNA studies and assays in the files.

A knock on the door drew his attention. The lab was kept locked to help protect its ozone-free status. The facility was only accessible with a proximity keycard.

With a few minutes still to go on the assay, he crossed to the door and opened it with a whispered hush of pressurized air. It was one of his doctoral students, Andrea Solderitch. Henry had hired the woman as his aide. She was attractive, with a shapely figure and auburn hair, but she was no twenty-something coed. She was in her midfifties, changing careers, formerly a registered nurse specializing in dialysis. And with the long hours spent together, he appreciated someone who occupied his same generation. They even liked the same music, which he often caught her humming under her breath.

At the moment, though, her expression was worried.

“What is it, Andrea?” he asked.

She lifted a sheaf of Post-it notes. “Senator Gorman’s office has called three times, wanting to check on your progress.”

Henry took the notes. He hated to have someone breathing down his neck, but he also understood the senator’s agitation. While Jason Gorman had only been Henry’s student, he still felt a stabbing pang of grief at the boy’s untimely death, especially with the brutality behind it.

“I also came down here to remind you that you have that appointment with Dr. Kokkalis from Washington in another hour. Did you want me to fetch you something from the cafeteria before then?”

“I’m fine, but since you’re here, I can use a fresh set of eyes on this data. Especially before I talk to Washington. See what you think.”

Her expression widened, barely masking her delight.

“And I appreciate you coming in on your day off,” he added as he led her toward the computer station. “I couldn’t have gotten this all done without your help.”

“No problem, Dr. Malloy.”

The computer modeling had finally finished its third run. The screen displayed the chromosomal mapping for the corn sample planted in the test field out in Africa. All of the chromosomes were black, except for a single one highlighted in white.

Henry tapped it on the screen. “Here you can see the radio-marked foreign DNA engineered into the genetically modified corn.”

Andrea leaned closer. Curiosity crinkled her brow. “What’s the source of the DNA? Bacterial?”

“Most likely. But I can’t say for sure.”

Still, Andrea’s guess was on target. Most genetic modifications were engineered via bacterial recombination and gene splicing, taking beneficial traits of certain bacteria and incorporating them into the plant genome. One of the earliest successes was when genes from Bacillus thuringiensis were inserted into tobacco plants. They made the plants more insect resistant, requiring the use of less insecticide in the fields. The same method was now used in corn. Such biotechnology had grown so prevalent over the past ten years that currently one-third of all corn grown in the United States was genetically modified.

“If it’s not bacterial DNA,” Andrea asked, “then what?”

“I don’t know. It’s patented and classified by Viatus. It’s only listed in the file as Dt222. The Dt stands for ‘drought tolerant.’ But that’s not what I wanted to show you.” Henry pointed at the screen. “This assay was sent to me by Jason Gorman two months ago.”

“Two months ago?”

“I know. The boy was so excited to be involved in that African field study. He wasn’t supposed to disseminate this information. It was a violation of his confidentiality agreement. I warned him to be more discreet and to keep quiet about it. I can only imagine his desperation on that last morning. Yet he still had the foresight to preserve whatever data he could.”

Andrea nodded. “What did he send out that last morning?”

Henry tapped at the keyboard, bringing forth the latest data. “Let me show you. They had just harvested the first generation of corn from the seeds planted. He sent the complete analysis of that harvest, including an entire DNA assay. Here are the results.”

On the screen appeared a second batch of chromosomes. Again a majority of them were color coded in black, denoting normal corn DNA. But instead of a single chromosome in white, a second chromosome above it was stippled in white and black.

“I don’t understand,” Andrea said.

“Look closer.”

Henry zoomed in on the picture of the transformed chromosome. It now showed a fine mapping of the individual genes, displaying a striping of black and white.

Henry explained, “The foreign DNA is incorporating itself into another chromosome, invading its neighbor.” “It’s spreading?”

He sat back and stared over at Andrea. He allowed some excitement to enter his voice. “I can’t say for sure. But I’ve compiled the data three times. Maybe the first sample that Jason sent was from a different hybrid. They could be testing more than one version of the corn out there. But if they’re not, it would suggest that the genetic modification is unstable. It’s changed from one generation to the next. The sample’s become more foreign and less corn.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. But someone needs to know about this. I’ve already passed on an inquiry to the Crop Biogenics division at Viatus. I’m sure they’ll want this data. I may even be able to worm a new grant out of the corporation.”

Andrea shifted to her feet. “Then maybe I can actually get that raise you keep hinting at.” A shadow of a smile played over her face, catching a bit of his excitement.

“We’ll see.”

Andrea checked her watch. “If you don’t need me, I should be getting home. My dogs have been cooped up all day. They’re probably crossing their hind legs and dancing to get out.”

Henry walked her to the door. “Thanks again for coming in on your day off.”

Andrea paused at the door. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat before I go?”

“No, I’m going to finalize the assay and upload it to the server. It shouldn’t take long.”

She waved as she exited. The door whooshed closed behind her.

Henry returned to his computer station. It would take him less than an hour to formalize his report. While the file Jason had sent from Africa cast little light on the young man’s death, it did illustrate a brave heart, something his father could be proud of.

“You did good, Jason,” Henry mumbled as he made a final review of all the files.

Over the next fifteen minutes, he typed a few notes and observations. He wanted to impress Viatus. Their Crop Biogenics division contracted with laboratories around the world to perform their assays, though mostly in India and Eastern Europe at the moment, where costs were cheaper. But Princeton’s genomics laboratory was one of the best in the world. If he could persuade the corporation to toss a little business their way …

A slow smile spread as he worked.

A knock on the door interrupted him again. His smile widened. If he knew Andrea, she had not taken him at his word. She must have gone to the cafeteria to fetch him a bite to eat.

“Be right there!” he called out. He crossed the lab and swiped his proximity keycard to unlock the door.

5:30 P.M.

Monk climbed into the cab outside the train station. His partner was already in the backseat, giving directions to the driver.

“Carl Icahn Lab on the Princeton campus. It’s on Washington Road.”

Monk settled into the seat next to him, straightened his suit jacket, and leaned back. He rested a briefcase on his lap. He stared down at the custom-made Tanner Krolle case and ran a hand over its English bridle leather. It had been an anniversary gift from Kat two months ago, when he’d formally returned to duty, as limited as it might be. He understood the unspoken message behind the expensive purchase. Kat was more than happy to have him pushing papers and conducting routine debriefings and interviews. Anything to keep him out of harm’s way.

He sighed, earning a glance from his new partner.

John Creed hunched a bit in his seat. Though wiry as a starved terrier, the man stood within a fingerbreadth of seven feet. He was one of Sigma’s newest recruits, clean-shaven, with lanky red hair, freckled over most of his face. Despite his boyish features, his expression remained steadily dour.

Monk frowned and asked him a question that had been nagging him since they’d first met. “So, kid, how old are you? Fourteen? Fifteen?”

“Twenty-five.”

Monk tried to hide his doubt. That seemed impossible. Only seven years separated them? Monk flexed his prosthetic hand, aware that a lot could happen over seven years. Still, he studied his companion more closely for the first time, trying to size him up.

On the train ride from Washington, Monk had read through the details about Dr. Henry Malloy, but he knew only the briefest bio on his traveling companion. Creed was from Ohio, had quit medical school after one year, and served two tours in Kabul as a grunt. Shrapnel from an IED had left him with a permanent limp. He tried for a third tour but ended up out of the service, though the details on that were less clear. Due to his test scores and background, he was recruited by Sigma and trained in genetics at Cornell.

Still, the kid looked like he could be in high school.

“So, Doogie,” Monk continued, “how long have you been active?”

Creed just stared at Monk, plainly accustomed to ribbing about his baby-faced looks. “Finished Cornell three months ago,” he said stiffly. “Been in D.C. for two months. Mostly getting settled in.”

“So this is your first assignment?”

“If you call this an assignment …,” he mumbled, and stared out the passenger window.

Though Monk felt the same way, he still bristled. “Nothing’s trivial when it comes to fieldwork. Every detail matters. The right piece of information can make or break a case. It’s something you need to learn, Doogie.”

Creed glanced to him. His dour look turned a bit sheepish. “Okay. Point taken.”

Monk folded his arms, hardly satisfied.

Kids. Think they know everything.

Shaking his head, Monk turned his attention outside as the cab crossed onto the Princeton campus. It was as if a verdant chunk of England had been dropped into the middle of New Jersey. Autumn leaves spread across rolling green lawns, ivy climbed walls of stately gothic stone buildings, even the dormitories looked like something out of Currier and Ives.

As they glided through this bucolic world, it did not take them long to reach their destination. The cab pulled to the curb, and they climbed out.

The Carl Icahn Laboratory occupied a corner of a wide green expanse. While many of Princeton’s structures dated to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the laboratory was only a few years old, a stunning example of modern architecture. Two rectangular buildings stood perpendicular to one another, housing the main labs. Joining them together was a two-story curved atrium, facing the parklands.

That’s where they were to meet Dr. Henry Malloy.

“Ready?” Monk asked and checked his watch. They were five minutes late.

“Ready for what?”

“The interview.”

“I thought you’d conduct the debriefing of the professor.”

“Nope. It’s all you, Doogie.”

Creed sighed heavily through his nose. “Fine.”

They entered the building and crossed into the atrium. A curving two-story wall of glass faced the park’s lawn. Forty-foot-tall louvers sectioned the windows and were timed to move with the sun. They cast shadows deep into the atrium, dappling across chairs and tables. Spatters of students sat and chatted, their hands permanently glued to coffee cups.

Monk searched and spotted where he was supposed to meet Dr. Malloy. It was hard to miss. “This way,” he said and led his companion across the atrium.

Off by a set of stairs rose a one-story sculpture. It looked like a half-melted conch shell. Even if not informed about it, Monk would have recognized the architectural design as Frank Gehry. The conch shell sheltered a small meeting place within its folds. A few people were already seated at a square conference table.

Monk crossed to join them. As he approached, he realized they were all too young. In his briefcase, Monk had a photograph of Dr. Malloy. The man was definitely not here.

Maybe the professor had come and gone already.

Monk stepped out of the conch and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed the man’s office number. It rang and rang, then went to voice mail.

If he’s already left, and I came all this way for nothing…

Monk dialed a second number. It was for the doctor’s assistant.

A woman answered. Monk quickly explained about Dr. Malloy’s absence.

“He’s not there?” his assistant asked.

“No one here but a lot of kids who look like junior high students.”

“I know,” the woman said with a laugh. “Students just keep getting younger, don’t they? And I’m sorry, but Dr. Malloy must still be in his lab. That’s where I last saw him, and he never hears his cell phone. He can get so focused on what he’s doing that he’ll work right through a scheduled lecture. I feared as much today, so stuck around. He’s very excited about what he’s discovered.”

Monk perked up with her last words. Had the professor figured something out, something that might help the case?

“Listen,” the woman continued, “I’m just across the street in my office, finishing some work with my lab partner. There’s an underground walkway that connects my building to yours. Ask one of the students. I’ll borrow a keycard from the administrator and meet you down there. Dr. Malloy’s lab is on the basement level. I imagine he’ll want to show you the DNA assay himself.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there.” Monk pocketed his phone and waved his briefcase at Creed. “C’mon. We’re heading directly to the guy’s lab.”

After getting directions from a coed in a very tight sweater, Monk led the way down to the basement level. The underground passageway was easy enough to find.

As they approached the tunnel entrance, a middle-aged woman waved to them from the other side. Monk waved back. She hurried over, out of breath, holding out her hand.

“Andrea Solderitch,” she introduced herself.

After the introductions, she led them down a neighboring hallway. She talked almost nonstop, plainly nervous.

“There are only a few labs down here. So it’s easy to get lost. Most everything else is storage rooms, mechanical spaces … oh, and the building’s vivarium, where they house the lab animals. The genomics department keeps its microarray facility down here to keep it ozone free. It’s right over here.”

She lifted the keycard in her hand and approached a closed door.

“The department administrator tried calling the lab,” she explained. “No answer. I’ll just pop a look inside. I’m sure he wouldn’t have left the campus.”

She waved the card and pulled the handle. As the door whooshed open, Monk immediately smelled smoke, electrical from the tang to it—and beneath it, a stench, like burned hair. He grabbed for Andrea, but he was too slow. She saw what was inside. Her face dissolved into confusion, then horror. A hand rose to cover her mouth.

Monk pulled her to the side and passed her to Creed. “Keep her here.”

He dropped his briefcase and reached to the shoulder holster inside his suit jacket. He pulled out his service pistol, a Heckler & Koch .45. The woman’s eyes widened. She turned away, pushing her face into Creed’s shoulder.

“Do you have a weapon?” Monk asked him. “No … I thought this was just an interview.”

Monk shook his head. “Let me guess, Doogie. You were never a Boy Scout.”

Not waiting for an answer, Monk entered the lab, sweeping the blind spots. He was sure whoever had been here had come and gone, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Dr. Henry Malloy was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. His head hung to his chest. Blood pooled under the chair.

A computer station behind him was a charred ruin.

Monk glanced around. They’d disabled the smoke detectors.

He crossed to the man and checked for a pulse. Nothing. But the body was still warm. The murderers hadn’t been gone long. Monk noted the doctor’s broken fingers. He’d been tortured. Most likely for information.

The killing blow had been a knife to the chest, one strike, expertly done. From the swift death, Malloy must have talked.

Monk sniffed. The burning stench was stronger by the body. He recognized the smell of charred flesh. With a finger, he gently lifted the man’s chin. The head lolled back, revealing the source of the smell. In the center of the man’s forehead, a raw burn, still blistering at the edges, marked his flesh, all the way down to the bone.

A circle and a cross.

A ringing chime drew his attention back to the doorway. It came from a cell phone. Not wanting to contaminate the scene any further, Monk retreated to the hall.

Andrea had her cell phone to her ear. Her eyes were damp, her nose running. She sniffed as she listened. “What?” she asked, less a question than an expression of shock. “No! Why?”

She fell against the wall and slumped to the floor. The phone tumbled from her fingers. Monk dropped to a knee beside her.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Someone …” She pointed at the phone. “That was my neighbor. She heard my dogs barking, saw someone leaving my house. She went over. Door was open. They … they killed my dogs.” She covered her face with her hands. “Why didn’t I go straight home like I told Dr. Malloy?”

Monk glanced at Creed. His brows were pinched together, not understanding.

Monk did. He reached over and pulled the woman to her feet. “How long ago did your neighbor see the intruder?”

She shook her head, struggling for words. “I … I don’t know. She didn’t say. She called the police.”

Monk glanced back to the body of Dr. Malloy. The professor had talked. Named names. Most likely including his assistant’s. Dr. Malloy had thought Andrea had been headed home. He must have given the torturer her home address. They’d gone off to silence her.

And not finding her there …

It would take only a few inquiries, a few calls.

“We have to get out of here. Right now!”

Monk pointed back the way they’d come. As a group, they rushed down the hall toward the underground passageway. It crossed beneath the street to the neighboring university building, where Andrea had been working.

“You said you were at your office with your lab partner,” Monk said as he hurried down the hall. “Did your partner know where you were headed?”

He got his answer as they reached the mouth of the tunnel. A tall man marched down the passageway toward them, dressed in a dark rain slicker—and it hadn’t rained in days.

Their eyes met across the space.

Monk recognized a feral gleam. He pushed Andrea back and raised his pistol. At the same time, the man lifted his arm, parting his slicker to reveal a snub-nosed machine gun. He strafed the end of the passageway. The odd weapon made no more noise than a cake mixer, but rounds chewed into the corner behind which they’d vanished. Plaster and tile exploded and flew.

“The stairs!” Monk ordered and pointed back toward the atrium. As they reached the bottom of the stairwell, footsteps echoed down from above.

Monk halted everyone. Looking up, he spotted a man hurrying down in boots and a black slicker, the same as the first. A second assassin. Retreating, he herded everyone back into the maze of hallways.

They had to find another way out.

As they fled into the dimly lit halls, a heavy metal door slammed somewhere on the opposite side of the basement. Monk turned to Andrea.

“I think that came from the emergency exit,” she whispered in bald terror.

Monk could guess what that meant.

A third assassin.

5
October 10, 6:32 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“The symbol’s not in the database of any known terrorist group,” Painter said. He stood before a conference table with a wall screen behind him. Glowing on the monitor was a blown-up rendering of the cross and circle.

Painter leaned on the table. The conference room was a new addition to Sigma Command, built after the firebombing. It held a circular table with computer stations before each chair. It could hold as many as a dozen people, but at the moment only three people were seated there.

Kat sat to Painter’s immediate right, bringing her international intelligence experience to the table. On her right was Adam Proust, an expert in cryptology, and across the table, Georgina Rowe, a new Sigma recruit whose expertise was bioengineering.

“So we start at square one,” Painter said and began to pace around the conference table. He had designed the room for just this purpose, to be able to move, to be able to observe those gathered around the table. “What does this symbol mean? How does it connect to the destruction of the Red Cross camp and the mutilation of the senator’s son?”

Adam cleared his throat and half-lifted a hand toward the screen. He was in his midforties, casually dressed in jeans, a thin black sweater, and tweed sportcoat. “This mark has a long symbolic history, going back as far as early man. It’s sometimes referred to as a quartered circle. The meaning is relatively uniform across cultures. The circle represents the earth. The cross, in turn, sections the world into four pieces. In Native American culture, those four pieces represent—”

“The four winds,” Painter acknowledged. He had been taught something similar by his father.

“Precisely. And in other cultures, it represents the four elements—earth, wind, air, and fire. Sometimes they’re represented thusly.” He tapped at his computer station and the screen changed.

“As you can see, the quartered circle becomes the symbol for the earth itself, encompassing all four elements. This mark can be found around the globe. The historical etymology of the symbol is quite fascinating and goes back to pagan times. In several Nordic countries the mark can be found carved into slabs and standing stones. It’s often accompanied by another petroglyph: the pagan spiral. The two are intimately related to one another.”

“Related?” Painter asked. “How so?”

Adam lifted a hand, asking for a moment, and typed at his station. A new image appeared on the screen. “Here’s a stylized pagan spiral. You can find variations of this around northern Europe.”

Another tap at the screen placed the spiral over the quartered circle.

“See how the spiral starts at the center of the cross and expands outward to fill the circle. While the quartered circle represents the earth, the spiral is meant to symbolize life, specifically the journey of the soul, rising from life to death to rebirth.”

Kat sighed. “This is all well and good, but I don’t see how this relates to the atrocities committed in Africa. Aren’t we getting off topic?”

“Maybe not,” Georgina Rowe argued and shifted straighter in her seat. She was a stocky woman, her hair cut into a masculine bob. “I’ve reviewed the NATO report, and while details are still preliminary and far from definitive, I can’t help but believe the attack had more to do with destroying the Viatus Corporation’s farm there than with some rivalry between rebels and the Mali government.”

“And I agree,” Kat said. “The Tuareg rebels have never demonstrated this level of violence. Theirs have mostly been hit-and-run types of attacks. Not this wholesale slaughter.”

“And trussing up that poor boy in the middle of a burned-out cornfield and branding him with that mark.” Georgina shook her head sadly. “It had to be a warning against what that corporation was doing out there, its research into genetically modified foods. With my background in bioengineering, I’m well aware of the controversy surrounding GM foods. There’s a growing movement against such manipulation of nature. And while it mostly stems from fear and misinformation, it’s also compounded by the lax government supervision of this exploding industry. I can go into more detail …”

Painter stopped across from her. “For now, let’s concentrate specifically on how it might relate to this case.”

“That’s easy enough. The anti-GM movement is especially strong in Africa. The countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe recently banned all food aid that contained GM foods, even though millions in both countries faced starvation. Basically it was a foolish policy of better dead than fed. Such lunacy is rampant and growing. I believe that the destruction of the Red Cross camp was meant as an attack on Viatus.” She pointed to the symbol on the screen. “And I think Adam’s description of the etymology of that symbol supports that.”

Painter began to understand. “A symbol that represents the earth.”

Georgina firmed her voice to match her conviction. “Whoever did this believes they’re protecting the earth. I think we’re dealing with a new and militant ecoterrorist group.”

Kat’s brows pinched together. “It does make a certain amount of sense. I’ll have my sources concentrate on that angle. See if we can’t figure out who these terrorists are and where they’re based.”

Painter turned back to Adam Proust, whose insight had offered a place to start. “We cut you off. Is there anything you wanted to add?”

“Just one more thing. About the quartered circle and the spiral. The two symbols were powerfully important and significant to the pagans of northern Europe. Especially the Druids. In fact, when the Nordic regions were converted to Christianity, the symbols became incorporated into the new faith. The Druid cross grew to become the Celtic cross used today.”

Adam tapped a new image onto the screen, extending the vertical line of the pagan symbol to form a Christian cross.

“Likewise,” Adam continued, “the spiral came to represent Christ, symbolizing his passage from life to death and finally his rebirth.”

“And the significance of this?” Kat asked, impatient, plainly anxious to follow the bread crumbs left by Georgina’s words.

But Painter recognized where Adam might be heading with this last assessment. He asked the cryptologist, “So you don’t think this ecoterrorist group is based in Africa?”

He shook his head. “The quartered circle, while it can be found in some African cultures, mostly represents a sun symbol rather than the earth. I think we should be directing any inquiries toward northern Europe. Especially since the Viatus Corporation’s headquarters are in Oslo, Norway.”

Georgina smiled. “So in other words, we’re looking for a bunch of pissed-off Druids.”

Adam didn’t return her smile, only shrugged. “There is a strong neo-pagan revival throughout Europe. And in fact, many of these groups are quite old. The Druid Circle of the Universal Bond. The Ancient Order of Druids. Both trace their organization back to the 1700s, while other groups claim an even longer heritage. Either way, the movement has been growing steadily of late, and a few sects are definitely militant in their beliefs and very anticorporation. I think that’s where any investigation should concentrate. In northern Europe.”

Kat nodded, if a bit stiffly, already planning in her head.

Painter circled back to the front of the conference room. “I think that gives us a good jumping-off point. If you’ll all—”

His cell phone rang in his pocket, cutting him off. Painter lifted a hand, asking for a moment, took out his BlackBerry, and checked the ID. It was his assistant. Painter felt a twinge of misgiving. He had asked not to be disturbed unless it was an emergency.

“What is it, Brant?”

“Sir, operations just phoned in. There’s been a flurry of 911 emergency calls coming out of Princeton. It seems a firefight has broken out at the Carl Icahn Laboratory.”

Painter kept his face passive. The lab was where Monk Kokkalis and John Creed had been headed. The pair should’ve reached Princeton an hour or so ago. Painter deliberately kept his gaze away from Kat, Monk’s wife.

“Get local authorities on the line and satellite feed up,” Painter said, feigning more irritation than alarm. “I’ll be right up there.”

He lowered the phone and faced the room. “Okay, you all know your duties. Let’s get to it.”

Painter turned on his heel and headed toward the exit.

He sensed Kat’s gaze fixed on his back. She was suspicious, but until he knew more about the situation, there was no need to alarm her.

Especially since she was pregnant again.

6:45 P.M.

Monk led the others through the basement, keeping his pistol pointed forward. He only had ten rounds … and at least three assailants. Not good odds, especially with the others carrying snub-nosed machine guns. He dared not waste a single shot. He’d left a second magazine back in his briefcase, but he’d dropped the case outside Malloy’s lab.

“Is there another way out of here?” he asked Andrea.

“No … but …” She searched up and down the hall. John Creed kept a hold on her elbow to keep her moving.

“But what?” Monk pressed.

“The lab building was constructed to be modular. To make it easier to change room configurations,” she said in a rush, then pointed up. “There’s a large maintenance level between floors. With catwalks for work crews.”

Monk glanced at the ceiling. That might work. “Where’s the closest access point?”

She shook her head, still struggling with shock. “I don’t know …”

Monk stopped and grabbed her shoulder with his prosthetic hand. “Andrea, take a breath, steady your—”

Machine-gun fire blasted. A figure rounded the far end of the hallway, his gun blazing. Rounds tore into the floor and walls. Monk shouldered into Andrea and fired blindly down the hall, wasting precious ammunition. The gunman ducked momentarily away. Monk shoved the woman through the closest door. Creed bowled through after them.

The door led to a small anteroom. A second set of double doors stood directly in front of them.

“Go!” Monk yelled.

They piled through into the next room. Lights flickered on automatically and revealed a large space divided by rows of stainless-steel cages. The smell of animal urine and musky bodies struck Monk immediately. He remembered Andrea’s description of the basement level’s layout. This must be the lab’s vivarium, where its research animals were housed. A dog barked from one of the back rows. Closer at hand, smaller bodies stirred—and some not-so-small bodies.

Along the bottom row of larger cages, potbellied pigs snorted and nosed the air. Some squealed and spun in circles. They were young, each about the size of a football, bringing new meaning to the term pigskin.

Monk pushed the others down the row. They had no way to barricade the door, and the gunman would be on them any moment.

“Is there another exit from here?” Monk asked Andrea.

She nodded and pointed across the room.

“Hurry.”

Monk heard clanking behind him. He turned to see Creed flipping open the lower cages as he chased after them. In his wake, small black-and-pink bodies tumbled out of their cages. They scurried and danced, squealed and screamed. More and more pigs joined the fray.

“What are you—?” Monk began.

“Obstacles,” Creed said, yanking more cages open.

Monk nodded, understanding. Nothing like littering their trail with scores of squealing footballs. It should slow the gunman down.

They had almost reached the far end of the vivarium when Monk heard the double doors bang open behind them. A short spatter of gunfire followed, but it quickly ended with a startled bark, followed by the clattering fall of a body to the floor.

Chalk one up for the pigskins.

Monk pushed Andrea to the end of the hall and through another set of double doors. Moments later they were back in a basement hallway.

“Those access points into the maintenance spaces,” Monk pressed. “Is there one nearby?”

“The only one I know about for sure is back at Dr. Malloy’s lab.”

Monk studied the crisscrossing hallways and maze of rooms. He was lost. “Can you get us back there?”

“Yes. It’s this way.”

Andrea headed off, less shocked, more determined. Monk kept to her side. Creed followed. Monk noted him clutching his upper thigh. His pant leg was damp.

Creed met his gaze and waved him on. “Took a ricochet. Just grazed. Keep going.”

They had no choice. After another turn, Monk suddenly recognized the hallway. They’d come full circle back to Dr. Malloy’s lab. Confirming this, Monk spotted his briefcase resting in the hall outside the open door.

They headed toward it at a full run.

Down the opposite end of the hall, another gunman appeared with a swirl of his black rain slicker. The open lab door still lay another ten yards away.

Monk kept his arm level and fired at the assailant. “Keep going!” he yelled as Andrea and Creed slowed. “Make for the lab!”

While it might be crazy to run toward a man wielding a machine gun, the room offered the only hope of escape.

Monk fired another two rounds. He was almost out, but the shots kept the assailant off balance. Unfortunately, the brief firefight had not gone unnoticed. Behind them, a new barrage erupted. Another gunman. The attackers were trying to trap them in a crossfire.

But by now, they’d reached the lab.

Andrea and Creed dashed inside. Monk bent down as the whine of a round ripped past the crown of his head. He snatched his abandoned briefcase and rolled sideways into the laboratory.

As soon as he was through, Creed slammed the door behind him.

“Locks automatically,” Andrea said, hugging her arms around her chest. She kept well clear of the chair where Dr. Malloy’s body was still tied.

Monk gained his feet, holding his pistol in one hand and his Tanner Krolle briefcase in the other. “That maintenance access?”

Andrea turned and pointed toward the ceiling above a lab table. A square panel was marked by an electrical hazard symbol.

Monk turned to Creed. “Get her up there. Keep moving.”

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be right behind you. Now move it!”

As Creed lifted Andrea onto the table, Monk dropped to one knee. He needed to buy the others as much time as possible to get away. Monk knew it was vital to get the woman to safety. Dr. Malloy must have told her something, something worth killing her over. Whatever that was, Monk wanted to know.

Creed already had the maintenance hatch open and used both arms to shove Andrea through it.

Sheltering behind the dead body in the chair, Monk snapped his briefcase and let it drop open on the floor. All the while, he kept an eye on the door. Locked or not, he knew the door would offer no more protection than a piece of tissue paper. Especially with the firepower behind these bastards.

And Monk was down to the last two rounds in his pistol. He needed the fresh magazine in his briefcase.

AS he reached for the spare, the doorknob exploded into the room, along with a good section of the jamb. The door swung open from the impact.

Monk caught a fluttering glimpse of a black slicker and fired at it. Twice. His pistol slide locked open as he ran out of ammunition.

The gunman spun out of view.

Monk snatched for the new magazine while ejecting the spent one.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted an arm wave beyond the doorway.

A black metal object the size of a baseball flew into the room.

Oh, crap …

Grenade.

Monk dropped both pistol and spare cartridge. Still on one knee, he lifted his open briefcase, caught the grenade inside, and snapped the case shut between his palms. Standing and swinging his arm around, he underhanded the briefcase back through the open doorway.

Even before it passed the threshold, Monk was moving. He turned, leaped to the tabletop, then bounded straight for the open ceiling hatch. Creed’s boots had just vanished ahead of him.

“Go!”

Too late.

The explosion deafened and flashed brilliantly. The blast wave shoved Monk up into the crawl space between floors. He struck some HVAC ductwork with his head and collapsed on top of Creed. They struggled for a bit to untangle themselves. Monk took an elbow to an eye.

Cursing and dazed, Monk waved the others onward. He doubted the gunmen would follow them, but until they were somewhere safe and sound, somewhere with lots of guns, he wasn’t going to let his guard down.

They stumbled onward, half deaf, half blind.

As Andrea had said, the maintenance space was equipped with catwalks to assist the work crews. Using the walkways, it didn’t take long to climb out of the bowels of the building and into the chaos above. Police had already converged on the place. Squad cars, SWAT vans, and a gathering media circus greeted them in the fields outside the building.

As they stumbled into the open, police surrounded them immediately. Even before Monk could begin to explain, a hand grabbed him, pulled him aside, and showed him a badge.

“Homeland Security,” the mountain of a man declared. “Dr. Kokkalis, we have orders from Washington to get you all to safety.”

Monk didn’t protest. He liked those orders just fine. But as they were led off, he glanced forlornly back at the building.

Kat was going to kill him.

That briefcase was damn expensive.

6
October 11, 6:28 A.M.
Fiumicino, Italy

Where was she?

Gray crossed out of the terminal of Rome’s main airport and headed toward the taxi queue. Horns blared and tour buses rumbled. Even this early in the morning, the airport was snarled with traffic and congested with travelers coming and going.

Gray kept his phone pressed to his ear as he hustled through the crowds. His way was made easier by the lumbering giant who forged a path ahead of him, like a water buffalo fording a flooded river. Gray followed behind in his bodyguard’s wake. Joe Kowalski was not a happy traveler. The former seaman clearly preferred the high seas to commercial air travel. He continued to grouse as they headed toward the taxi line.

“Could those seats have been any tighter?” The hulking man cracked his neck and wore a sour expression. “My knees were practically rubbing my ears. Like that airline wanted to perform a damn prostate exam on me. And I wouldn’t have minded that if we’d had one woman stewardess.” Kowalski glanced back at Gray. “And that gal with a mustache doesn’t count.”

“You didn’t have to volunteer to come,” Gray answered as he waited on hold on the phone.

“Volunteer?” Kowalski scowled. “At time-and-a-half pay? That was like putting a gun against my back. I’ve got a girlfriend to support.”

Gray still failed to understand the relationship between the former seaman and the university professor, but at least she had him showering more frequently. Even the black stubble atop Kowalski’s head was trimmed into cleaner lines.

Gray waved an arm to keep them moving. He remained on hold with the office of the Comando Carabinieri Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, where Rachel worked. Before leaving Washington, the plan had been to rendezvous with her outside the international terminal, but she was not anywhere among the throngs of travelers. He had tried calling her apartment and her cell phone, but there was no answer. Thinking she was stuck in traffic, Gray had waited in the terminal for an extra half hour.

During that delay, he had used the time to check in with Sigma. It was a little past midnight back home. The director had filled him in on the details of the operation that had blown up in New Jersey. Monk had been involved in a firefight. It all involved a possible ecoterrorist group, but details were still sketchy.

Hearing that, Gray had an urge to hop on the plane and head back home, but Painter insisted that they had matters locked down for the moment. A key person-of-interest had been secured and was being questioned. Gray was ordered to maintain his current status.

Finally a woman’s stern voice spoke in Gray’s ear, speaking rapidly in Italian. After dating Rachel for over a year, Gray had acquired some fluency with the language.

“Lieutenant Verona is not in the TCP today. According to the roster, she’s on leave. Perhaps another officer might assist you—”

“No, thank you. Grazie”

Gray hung up and pocketed his phone. He knew Rachel had been planning to take time off, but he’d hoped she was at the station for some reason. He grew worried. Where could she be?

Kowalski hailed a taxi, and they climbed inside.

His partner glanced at him. “How about that hospital?” he said. “The one where her uncle is being treated?”

“Right.” Gray nodded. He should’ve thought of that. Maybe her uncle had taken a turn for the worse. Such an emergency would’ve pulled Rachel away. Distraught, she could easily have forgotten about the time.

Gray dialed information and got connected to the hospital operator. An attempt to reach Vigor’s room failed. He did reach a floor nurse.

“Monsignor Verona remains in intensive care,” the woman informed him. “Any further inquiries must be made through his family or through the polizia.”

“I just wanted to know if his niece might be there visiting. Lieutenant Rachel Verona.”

The woman’s voice warmed up. “Ah, his nipote Rachel. Bellissima ragazza. She spent many hours here. But she left last night and has not come in this morning.”

“If she does show up, can you let her know I called?” Gray left his number.

Pocketing his cell phone, he sagged in his seat. He stared at the passing scenery as the taxi sped along the interstate toward downtown Rome. Rachel had arranged a room at a small Italian bed-and-breakfast. Gray had stayed there before. Back when they were dating.

He struggled to think of any other reason why Rachel would not have shown up. Where could she be? Worry edged toward panic. He willed the taxi to go faster.

He would check for any messages at the hotel, then head directly over to her apartment. It was only a handful of blocks from the hotel.

Still, it would take time to get there.

Too much time.

With each passing mile, his heart pounded harder, his left hand tightened on his knee. As they finally passed through one of the ancient city gates and headed into central Rome, the taxi’s passage became a crawl. The streets grew narrower and narrower. Pedestrians scooted sideways; a bicycle zigzagged between the cars.

At last the taxi pulled into a side street and came to a stop in front of the small hostelry. Gray hopped out, grabbed his bag, and left Kowalski to pay the driver.

The hotel appeared nondescript from the street. A small brass plaque on a wall, no larger than Gray’s palm, read Casa di Cartina. The hotel had been converted out of three adjoining buildings, all dating from the eighteenth century. A half flight of stairs led down to a small lobby.

Gray headed below. The reason for the hotel’s name became apparent as soon as the brush of the hanging bell announced Gray’s entrance. All four walls of the room were covered with ancient maps and bits of cartography. The hostelry’s owners came from a long line of world travelers and mariners, stretching back to before Christopher Columbus.

A wizened old man in a buttoned vest met Gray behind a small wooden front desk. His face cracked into a warm smile. “It has been a long time, Signor Pierce,” the proprietor said warmly in English, recognizing Gray.

“It has, Franco.”

Gray exchanged a few pleasantries, long enough for Kowalski to come striding into the space. The larger man’s eyes swept the walls. With a background in the navy, he nodded his approval at the choice of decor.

“Franco, I was wondering if you had heard any word from Rachel.” Gray forced his voice not to sound strained. “I was hoping she’d left a message.”

The man’s face crinkled in confusion. “A message?”

Gray felt a sinking in his chest. Clearly there had been no message. Maybe she was back at her—

“Signor Pierce, why would la signorina Verona leave a message? She is already up in your room, waiting for you.”

Gray’s relief felt like a rush of cold water. “Upstairs?”

Franco reached into a cubby behind his desk, removed a key, and passed it to Gray. “Fourth floor. I gave you a nice balcony room. The view of the Coliseum is very nice from that room.”

Gray nodded and took the key. “Grazie.”

“Can I have someone bring up your bags?”

Kowalski scooped Gray’s duffel from the floor. “I got it.” He bumped Gray in the rear with his bag to get him moving.

Gray thanked Franco again and headed to the stairs. It was a narrow, winding way, more ladder than stairwell. They had to go single file. Kowalski eyed it doubtfully.

“Where’s the elevator?”

“No elevator.” Gray set off up the stairs.

Kowalski followed. “You’ve got to be goddamn kidding me.” He wrestled to get himself and the bags up. After two flights, his face had turned a deep red and a string of curses flowed in a continual stream.

Reaching the fourth floor, Gray followed the wall signs to find their room. The layout was a convoluted maze of sharp corners and sudden dead ends.

He finally reached the correct door. Though it was his room, he still knocked before using the key. He pushed open the door, anxious to see Rachel, surprised at the depth of his desire. It had been a long time … maybe too long.

“Rachel? It’s Gray.”

She was seated on the bed, framed against the window, bathed in the morning sunlight. She stood up as he quickly entered the room.

“Why didn’t you call?” Gray asked.

Before she could speak, another woman answered, “Because I asked her not to.”

Only now did Gray notice the handcuff that bound Rachel’s right arm to the headboard. Gray turned.

A slim figure, wrapped in a robe, stepped from the bathroom. Her black hair was wet, freshly combed straight past her shoulders. Almond eyes the color of cold jade stared back at him. Her legs, bare to mid-thigh, crossed casually as she leaned on the bathroom door frame.

In her free hand, she leveled a pistol at him.

“Seichan …”

1:15 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

“We’re not going to get anything more out of her,” Monk told Painter as he sank into the seat across the desk. “She’s exhausted and still in a state of shock.”

Painter studied Monk. The man looked just as exhausted. “Did Creed finish his assessment of the genetic data?”

“Hours ago. He still wants to crunch the data past a statistician to be sure, but for the moment, he confirms Andrea Solderitch’s story. Or at least as much as we can verify.”

Painter had kept current with the status reports. Dr. Malloy’s assistant had described a conversation with the professor just an hour before he was murdered. The professor had been compiling the genetic assay that made up the bulk of the file that Jason Gorman had e-mailed his father. It had revealed a genetic map of the corn harvested in Africa. Radioactive markers showed which genes were foreign to the corn.

Two chromosomes.

“And what about that original file?” Painter asked. “The one Jason Gorman sent to the professor two months ago. The one that contained the genetic data from the seeds originally planted in that field?”

Monk ran a hand over his bald scalp. “The techs at Princeton are still trying to recover the data. They’ve checked all the servers. The professor must have kept the file isolated to his own computer. The one torched by the assassins. All evidence of it is gone.”

Painter sighed. They kept hitting dead ends. Even the gunmen had vanished. No bodies had been found. The assassins must have escaped the blast and slipped past the cordon around the laboratory.

“Though we don’t have hard proof, I believe Andrea’s story,” Monk continued. “According to her, the professor found only one chromosome of foreign DNA in the original seed. He believed the two files showed that genetic modification was unstable in the harvest.

“But without that first file,” Painter said, “we can’t prove it.”

“Still, it had to be why the professor was tortured and murdered. The assassins must have had orders to destroy all evidence of that first file … and everyone who knew about it. And they almost succeeded.”

Painter frowned. “Still, all we have is Ms. Solderitch’s word. And according to her, even the professor wasn’t entirely certain about that instability. The samples could have come from two different genetic hybrids. They might be unrelated to one another.”

“So what do we do next?”

“I think it’s time we go to the source of all this.”

Monk stared at the seed-shaped logo printed atop the file on Painter’s desk. “Viatus.”

“It all seems to come back to that Norwegian corporation. You’ve read the intelligence report on that symbol burned into the boy and the professor.”

Monk’s face tightened with distaste. “The quartered circle. Some pagan cross.”

“Initial conjecture is that it might represent an ecoterrorist group. And maybe it does. Maybe some lunatics have a personal vendetta against Viatus. And that first file held some clue about it all.” Painter sighed and stretched. “Either way, it’s high time we had a talk with Ivar Karlsen, CEO of Viatus International.”

“What if he won’t talk?”

“Two murders on two continents—he’d better talk. Bad press can sink stock values faster than any sour earnings report.” “When do you want to—”

A hurried knock on the door cut Monk off. Both men turned as the door swung open. Kat rushed into the room and crossed to the desk. Monk lifted an arm, offering a hand, but he was ignored.

Painter sat straighter. This can’t be good …

Kat’s eyes were narrow with concern, her cheeks flushed as if she’d run all the way down here. “We’ve got trouble.”

“What?” Painter asked.

“I should’ve gotten this sooner.” Her voice was brittle with frustration. “Interpol’s inquiry and ours must have crossed somewhere over the Atlantic, got mixed up. Neither side realized we were talking about two separate incidents. Stupid. Like dogs chasing their tails.”

“What?” Painter asked again.

Monk took his wife’s hand. “Slow down, hon. Take a breath.”

The suggestion only made her angrier, but she kept her grip on his hand. “Another murder. Another body marked with the cross and circle.”

“Where?”

“Rome,” Kat said. “The Vatican.”

She didn’t have to explain more.

7:30 A.M.
Rome, Italy

“Let’s all just stay calm,” Seichan said, keeping her pistol steady as a rock.

Behind Gray, Kowalski dropped both bags and raised his hands. His voice soured. “I hate traveling with you, Gray. I really do.”

Gray ignored him and faced the former Guild assassin … that is, if she was former. “Seichan, what are you doing?”

His words encompassed multiple questions. What was she doing in Rome? Why was she holding Rachel hostage? What was she doing pointing a gun at him? How could she even be here?

The satellite feed from her implant had her placed in Venice. Painter would have called Gray immediately if she had moved from there to here.

She ignored his question and asked one of her own. “Are you armed?” She nodded to encompass Kowalski.

“No.”

Seichan eyed Gray, as if weighing the truth of his words. And it was the truth. They had traveled by commercial airline and had no time to acquire weapons.

Seichan finally shrugged, pocketed her pistol, and entered the room. She moved with a leonine grace, all legs and hidden strength. Gray didn’t doubt she could have her pistol back out in the blink of an eye.

“Then we can all talk like friends,” she said mockingly and tossed Gray a tiny key. It plainly fit Rachel’s handcuff.

He caught the key, stepped over to the bed, and leaned down to unlock the cuff.

“Are you okay?” he whispered in Rachel’s ear as he worked the key, his cheek near hers. The nape of her neck smelled familiar, stirring old feelings, warming embers that Gray thought had long gone cold. As he straightened, he noted that she’d let her hair grow out longer, past her shoulders. She had also thinned down, making her high cheekbones more prominent, increasing her resemblance to a young Audrey Hepburn.

Freed, she rubbed her wrist. Her voice was hard with fury and brisk with embarrassment. “I’m fine. In fact, you might want to hear what she has to say.” Her voice lowered. “But be careful. She’s drawn tight as a bowstring.”

Gray turned to face Seichan. She strolled to the window, staring out across the rooftops of Rome. The curve of the Coliseum stood against the horizon.

“Where do you want to start, Pierce?” She didn’t bother to glance at him. “Not expecting me in Rome?”

She dropped a hand to her lower left side. It wasn’t done casually, but accusingly. The tracker had been implanted during abdominal surgery last year. Just in that spot.

She confirmed what Gray feared. “It was suspicious enough that I escaped so easily from Bangkok. But when there was no hard pursuit, I knew something was wrong.” She turned and cocked an eyebrow at Gray. “A Guild agent escapes custody, but there is no more than a cursory search?”

“You found the implant.”

“I’ll give you all credit. It was difficult to find. Even a full-body MRI in Saint Petersburg failed to reveal it. Five months ago, I had a doctor perform exploratory surgery, starting with where you all operated on me.”

Here was the flaw in Painter’s original plan. They’d underestimated the level of paranoia in their target.

“The surgery took three hours,” she continued with a growing edge to her voice. “I watched it all in a mirror. They found the implant buried in my healed wound—a wound I sustained saving your life, Pierce.”

Anger hardened her face, but he didn’t fail to note a slight wounding in her eyes.

“So you removed our tracker.” Gray pictured the crooked path on the surveillance monitor. “But you still kept it with you.”

“I found it useful. It allowed me to hide in plain sight. I could park the tracker somewhere for a while, then move off on my own.”

“Like you did in Venice.”

She shrugged.

“The city where the curator you murdered lived. Where his family still lives.”

Gray let the accusation hang. Seichan shook her head very slightly and glanced away. He had a difficult time reading the play of emotions that flickered past.

“The girl had a cat,” she said more quietly. “An orange tabby with a studded collar.”

Gray knew the girl must be the curator’s daughter. So Seichan had indeed gone to check on the family, moved in close enough to observe the simple routine of their lives, a family shattered by the death of a husband and a father. She must have planted her tracker on the cat’s collar. It was a smart move. The cat’s wandering through the neighborhood streets and rooftops would make the tracker seem active. It was no wonder the agents on the ground could find no trace of her in the Venetian neighborhood. With the hounds following the false trail, the real cat had escaped.

Gray wanted more answers from this woman. One question was foremost in his mind, a conversation they’d never completed. “What about your claim that you’re a double—”

Seichan glanced sharply back at him. Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes turned rock hard, warning him to back off. He had been about to question her assertion that she was a mole planted in the Guild, a double agent put there by Western forces, but plainly this was a conversation she didn’t want in public. Or maybe he misread her expression. Maybe the bitterness in those eyes merely scoffed at his gullibility. He remembered her last words in Bangkok.

Trust me, Gray. If only a little.

Staring at her now, he let the question drop.

For now.

“Then why are you here in Rome? Why meet like this?” Gray gestured toward Rachel.

“Because I need a bargaining chip.”

“Something to leverage against me?” Gray glanced at Rachel.

“No. Something to offer the Guild. After events in Cambodia, suspicions have run high concerning my loyalty. AS well as I can tell, the Guild has been sniffing around the recent bombing at Saint Peter’s. Something has piqued their interest. Then I heard that Monsignor Verona was involved in this incident—”

“Incident?” Rachel burst out. “He’s in a coma.”

Seichan ignored her. “So I came here. I believed I could benefit from this situation. If I could acquire some key piece of information about this bombing, I could buy my way back into the full trust of the Guild echelon.”

Gray studied Seichan. Despite the callous nature of her words, the reasoning matched her claim two years ago. She had supposedly been sent into the Guild to root out its leaders. The only way to keep rising in the shadowy hierarchy—up the bloody food chain—was to produce results.

“I’d hoped to interrogate Rachel,” she explained. “But when I got here, I found someone ransacking her apartment.”

Gray turned to Rachel, who nodded confirmation, but there remained an angry glint in her eyes.

“The Guild determined that the assassins were after something the murdered priest had in his possession, something they wanted desperately. The assassins probably searched the man’s body, but the explosion left them time for little else. Like searching the monsignor.”

“So someone assumed Vigor must have had it,” Gray realized and turned to Rachel. “And that his niece might have ended up with it after acquiring his possessions from the hospital.”

Seichan nodded. “They went to look for it.”

A wince of dread tightened in his gut. If they’d found Rachel, they would have carried out a brutal interrogation, then killed her. And after failing to find anything at her apartment, they were probably hunting for her right now, setting up surveillance at likely locations: apartment, place of work, even the hospital.

There was only one way to protect Rachel.

“We have to find out what they’re looking for,” Gray concluded aloud.

Rachel and Seichan shared a glance.

“I have it,” Rachel said.

Gray could not hide his shock.

“But we have no idea of its significance,” Seichan said. “Show him.”

Rachel reached into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out a tiny leather satchel, no larger than a coin purse. She briefly described her discovery, how she found the object hanging from a bronze skeleton’s finger in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

“Uncle Vigor led me to it,” she finished and handed over the satchel. “But Seichan and I haven’t been able to determine anything else. Especially about what’s inside.”

Seichan and I…?

From the casualness of her statement, it almost sounded like the two were partners, not kidnapper and victim. Gray glanced toward the bathroom. While Rachel had talked, Seichan had stepped out of view, leaving her towel on the floor. He heard her shuffling in there, and he was equally sure she was listening to them. Any attempt to make for the door and she’d be on them.

“Are you truly all right?” Gray whispered to Rachel, catching her eye.

She nodded. “She only handcuffed me when she took a shower. Not exactly the trusting type.”

At the moment, Gray appreciated Seichan’s caution. Rachel was headstrong like him. Given the chance, she’d have bolted for her freedom. That might have ended badly. If the other hunters had caught her, they would not have been so gentle.

Kowalski stepped closer now that Seichan was out of sight. He pointed at the satchel. “What’s in that thing?”

Gray had already teased open the leather strings. Now he emptied the contents into his palm. He sensed the weight of Rachel’s gaze on him, waiting for his assessment.

“Is that—?” Kowalski had leaned over Gray’s shoulder. He pulled away. “Oh, man, that’s sick.”

Gray didn’t disagree, scowling his distaste. “It’s a human finger.”

“A mummified finger,” Rachel added.

Kowalski’s expression soured. “And knowing us, it’s probably cursed.”

“Where did it come from?” Gray asked.

“I don’t know, but Father Giovanni was working in the mountains of northern England. At an excavation there. There were no more details in the police report.”

Gray rolled the leathery digit back into the purse. As he did so, he noted the crude spiral burned into the leather. Curious, he turned the satchel over and spotted another mark on the other side. A circle and a cross. He immediately recognized it from Painter’s description of events back in D.C. There had been two other murders on two continents, both bodies bearing this same mark.

Gray faced Rachel. “This symbol. You said you knew the satchel had to be connected to the bombing. Why were you so certain?”

He got the answer he was expecting.

“The attackers branded Father Giovanni”—she touched her forehead—”with the same mark. It was a detail left out of the press. Interpol was investigating its significance.”

Gray stared down at the pouch in his palm.

Make that three murders on three continents.

But how were all these deaths connected?

Rachel must have read something in his face. “What is it, Gray?”

Before he could answer, the hotel phone on the nightstand rang. Everyone froze for a moment. Seichan stepped back into the room, dressed in black slacks and a burgundy blouse. She pulled on a battered black leather jacket.

“Is anyone going to get that?” Kowalski asked as the phone rang again.

Gray stepped to the table and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

It was Franco, the hotel owner. “Ah, Signor Pierce, I just wanted to let you know your three visitors are headed up to your room.”

Gray struggled for a moment to understand. It was a common custom in Europe to announce visitors, in case their guests might be indisposed. And Franco knew Rachel and Gray were ex-lovers. He wouldn’t want them caught with their pants down, so to speak.

But Gray wasn’t expecting anyone. He knew what that meant. He mumbled out a hurried “Grazie,” then faced the others. “We’ve got company on the way up.”

“Company?” Kowalski asked.

Seichan immediately understood. “Were you followed?”

Gray thought back. He’d been so concerned about Rachel’s absence he’d failed to pay strict attention to the surrounding traffic. He also remembered his earlier concern about the hunters, how they might be setting up surveillance on anyone and everyone connected to Rachel. Gray had placed several calls.

His concern must have reached the wrong ears.

Seichan read the growing certainty in his face and swung for the door. She pulled out her pistol from the small of her back.

“Time for an early checkout, boys.”

7
October 11, 8:04 A.M.
Oslo, Norway

Ivar Karlsen watched the storm building across the fjord. He loved hard weather and welcomed autumn’s rough descent into winter. Icy rain and snow flurries were already sweeping the colder nights. Frost greeted most mornings. Even now, he felt the chill on his cheeks as he leaned his knuckles on the ancient stones and stared out the arched window.

He kept guard at the top of Munk Tower. It was the highest point of Akershus Fortress, one of Oslo’s most prominent landmarks. The imposing stone structure was first built on the eastern harborside by King Haakon V during the thirteenth century to defend the city. Over time it had been reinforced with additional moats, ramparts, and battlements. Munk Tower, where he stood now, had been constructed in the middle of the sixteenth century, when cannons had been added to the defense of the fortress and castle.

Ivar straightened and rested a hand on one of the ancient cannons. The cold iron reminded him of his duty, of his responsibility to defend not only this country, but the world. It was why he had picked the ancient fortress to host this year’s UNESCO World Food Summit. It was a fitting bastion against the troubling times that were upon them all. One billion people were facing food shortages worldwide, and he knew that was only the beginning. The summit was critical for the world and for his company, Viatus International.

He would not let anything thwart his goals—not what had happened in Africa, not even what was going on in Washington, D.C. His objectives were vital to world security, not to mention his own family legacy.

Back in 1802, when Oslo was still called Christiania, the brothers Knut and Artur Karlsen combined a logging company with a gunpowder mill to found an empire. Their wealth became legendary, elevating them to true barons of industry. But even back then, the pair tempered their good fortune with good deeds. They founded schools, built hospitals, improved the national infrastructure, and, most important, sponsored innovation in the rapidly growing country. It was why they had named their company Viatus, from the Latin via, which meant “path,” and vita, which meant “life.” To the Karlsen brothers, Viatus was the Path of Life. It epitomized their belief that the ultimate goal of industry was to improve the world, that wealth should be tempered by responsibility.

And Ivar intended to carry on that legacy, one that stretched to the founding of Norway itself. Stories circulated that the Karlsen family tree had its beginnings as far back as the first Viking settlers, that its roots were even tangled with those of Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology. But Ivar knew such claims were just colorful tales told by his old bestefar and bestemor, stories passed from one generation to another.

Either way, Ivar remained proud of his family’s history and of Norway’s rich Viking lore. He welcomed the comparison. It had been the Vikings who truly forged the northern world, sweeping in their dragon-prowed longships across Europe and Russia, even to America.

So why shouldn’t Ivar Karlsen be proud?

From his vantage high atop Munk Tower, he watched the storm clouds stack across the skies. It would be pouring rain by midmorning, freezing sleet by the afternoon, possibly the first true snowfall by evening. Snow had come early this year, another sign of the shifting weather patterns as nature roiled against the damage done by man, lashing back against the choking toxins and rising carbon levels. Let others question mankind’s hand in this global meltdown. Ivar lived in a land of glaciers. He knew the truth. Snowpack and permafrost were melting at record paces. In 2006 Norwegian glaciers had retreated faster than ever recorded.

The world was changing, melting before his eyes. Someone had to take a stand to protect mankind.

Even if it had to be a bloody Viking, he thought with a grim smile.

He shook his head at such foolishness. Especially at his age. It was strange how history weighed more heavily upon one’s heart as one grew older. Ivar was fast approaching his sixty-fifth birthday. And though his red hair had long since gone snowy, he wore it shaggy to his shoulders. He also kept fit with a vigorous exercise routine, laboring both in steam lodges and out in freezing temperatures, as in his long cold climb this morning to reach this high perch. Over the years, the routine had left his body hard, his face weathered to a ruddy leather.

He checked his watch. Though the UNESCO summit was not due to start until tomorrow officially, he had several organizational meetings still to attend.

As the storm rolled up the fjord, Ivar headed back down the tower. He caught glimpses of the preparations below in the courtyard. Despite the threat of rain, booths and tables were being set up. Luckily, most of the talks and lectures would occur in the grand upper rooms and banquet halls of Akershus Castle. Even the medieval fortress church would host a series of evening concerts, encompassing choral groups from around the world. In addition, the military museums associated with the fortress—the Norwegian Resistance Museum and the Armed Forces Museum—were being readied for the visiting groups, as were the lower sections of the castle itself, where guides would lead tours into the ancient dungeons and dark passages, sharing the stories of ghosts and witches that had always haunted the gloomy fortress.

Of course, the reality of Akershus was just as gruesome. During WWII, the fortress had been occupied by the Germans. Many Norwegian citizens were tortured and murdered within these walls. And afterward, war trials were conducted and executions performed, including those of the famous traitor and Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling.

Reaching the bottom of the tower, Ivar passed into the courtyard. With one foot in the present and the other in the past, he failed to note the round-bellied man blocking his way until he was almost atop him. Ivar recognized Antonio Gravel immediately. The current secretary-general for the Club of Rome did not look pleased.

And Ivar knew why. He had hoped to put the man off for another few hours, but clearly it could not wait. The two men had been butting heads ever since Ivar joined the ranks of his organization.

The Club of Rome was an international think tank comprised of industrialists, scientists, world leaders, and even royalty. Since its inception in 1968, it had grown into an organization encompassing thirty countries across five continents. The main goal of the organization was to raise awareness of critical global crises that threatened the future. Ivar’s father had been one of the founding members.

After his father died, Ivar assumed his position and discovered the Club of Rome suited both his personality and his needs. Over the passing years, he thrived in the organization, rising to take a leadership position. As a result, Antonio Gravel felt threatened and had spent the past months growing into an ever larger thorn in Ivar’s side.

Still, Ivar kept his expression warm and inviting. “Ah, Antonio, I don’t have much time. So why don’t you walk with me?”

Antonio followed him as he set off across the courtyard. “You’ll have to find the time, Ivar. I allowed this year’s conference to be hosted here in Oslo. The least you can do is to properly address my concerns.”

Ivar kept his face passive. Gravel had allowed nothing, but fought Ivar every step of the way. The man had wanted this year’s summit to take place in Zurich, home of the club’s new international secretariat. But Ivar had outmanipulated the secretary-general, coaxing the summit to Oslo, mostly because of a special excursion Ivar had arranged, scheduled for the last day of the conference, a trip limited to the top tier involved in the summit organization.

“As secretary-general of the Club of Rome,” Antonio pressed, “I think it’s only fitting that I accompany the VIPs who are heading to Spitsbergen.”

“I understand, but I’m afraid that’s not possible, Antonio. You understand the sensitive nature of where we’re headed. If it were just me, I’d of course welcome your company, but it was the Norwegian government that limited the number of visitors to Svalbard.”

“But …” As Antonio struggled to find a suitable argument, the raw desire shone from his face.

Ivar let him stew. It had cost Viatus a mint to arrange a fleet of corporate jets to fly the elite of the conference to the remote Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean. The goal of the trip was a private tour of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The vast underground seed bank had been established to store and preserve the seeds of the world, specifically crop seeds. It had been buried in that perpetually frozen and inhospitable place in case of a global disaster—natural or otherwise. If such an event should ever transpire, the frozen and buried seeds would be preserved for a future world.

It was why Svalbard had earned the nickname the Doomsday Vault.

“But … I think on such a trip,” Antonio continued, “the executive board of the Club of Rome should show a united front. Food security is so vital today.”

Ivar forced his eyes not to roll. He knew that Antonio Gravel’s desire had nothing to do with food security, but everything to do with his aspiration to rub elbows with the next generation’s world leaders.

“You’re right about food security,” Ivar conceded. “In fact, that very topic will be the focus of my keynote speech.”

Ivar intended to use his keynote to swing the Club of Rome’s resources in a new direction. It was a time for true action. Still, he read Antonio’s darkening expression. Anger had replaced the man’s coddling tones.

“Speaking of your speech,” Antonio said bitterly, “I obtained an early draft and read it.”

Ivar stopped and turned to the man. “You read my speech?” No one was supposed to know its content. “Where did you get it?”

Antonio dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you can’t give such a speech and still expect to represent the Club of Rome. I’ve brought the matter up with Copresident Boutha. And he concurs. Now is not the time to broadcast warnings of imminent world collapse. It’s … it’s irresponsible.”

Blood burned the chill from Ivar’s face. “Then when is that time?” he asked, working his tight jaw. “When the world has slid into chaos and ninety percent of its population is dead?”

Antonio shook his head. “That’s what I’m talking about. You’ll make the club look like madmen and doomsayers. We won’t tolerate it.”

“Tolerate it? The core of my speech comes from the Club of Rome’s own published report.”

“Yes, I know. The Limits to Growth. You cite it often enough in your speech. That was written back in 1972.”

“And it’s even more timely today. The report outlines in great detail the collapse that the world is currently barreling straight for.”

Ivar had studied The Limits to Growth in great detail, mapping out its charts and data. The report modeled the future of the world, where population continued to grow exponentially while food production only grew arithmetically. Eventually the population would outstrip its ability to produce food to sustain itself. It would hit such a point like a locomotive and overshoot it. Once that happened, chaos, starvation, and war would ensue, with the end result being the annihilation of mankind. Even the most conservative models showed that 90 percent of the world population would die as a result. The studies had been repeated elsewhere with the same dire results.

Antonio shrugged, dismissing the entire matter. Ivar balled a fist and came close to breaking the man’s nose.

“That speech,” Antonio said, oblivious to the danger. “What you’re advocating is radical population control. It will never be stomached.”

“It must be,” Ivar argued. “There’s no way we can dodge what’s coming. The world has gone from four billion to six billion in only two decades. And it shows no signs of slowing. We’ll be at nine billion in another twenty years. And even now, the world is running out of arable farmland, global warming is wreaking havoc, and our oceans are dying. We will hit that overshoot point sooner than anyone is expecting.”

Ivar grabbed Antonio’s arm, letting his passion show. “But we can mitigate its impact by planning now. There is only one way to avoid complete worldwide collapse—and that’s to slowly and steadily lower the human biomass of this planet before we hit that overshoot point. The future of mankind depends on it.”

“We’ll manage just fine,” Antonio said. “Or don’t you have faith in your own research? Aren’t the GM foods your corporation is patenting supposed to open new lands, produce greater yields?”

“But even that will only buy us a small window of time.”

Antonio glanced at his watch. “Speaking of time, I must be going. I’ve delivered Boutha’s message. You’ll have to adjust your speech accordingly if you wish to deliver the keynote.”

Ivar watched the man stride off toward the drawbridge that spanned the Kirkegata entrance.

Standing in the courtyard, Ivar remained as rain began to drizzle out of the sky, the first portent of a greater deluge. He let the icy drops cool the pounding of his heart. He would address these matters with the copresident of the club later. Perhaps he should temper his rhetoric. Maybe it was better to use a more gentle hand on the rudder that steered the world’s fate.

Calmed again and resolute, he headed across the courtyard toward the bulk of Akershus Church with its large rosette window. He was already late for the meeting. Within the Club of Rome, Ivar had gathered like-minded men and women, those willing to make hard choices, to stand by their convictions. While Antonio and the two copresidents might be the figureheads of the Club of Rome, Ivar Karlsen and his inner cabal kept their own pact, a club within the club—a heart of iron, beating with the hope of the planet.

Crossing into the church, Ivar saw that the others had already gathered within the small brick-walled nave. Chairs had been pushed to one side, and a choral stage had been set up to the left of the altar. Arched windows let in murky light, while a brightly lit gilt chandelier sought to add a meager bit of cheer.

Faces turned as Ivar entered. Twelve in all.

They were the true powers behind the club: leaders of industry, Nobel Prize—winning scientists, government representatives from major nations, even a Hollywood celebrity whose high-profile advocacy had drawn both attention and money to their group’s causes.

Each served a specific purpose.

Even the man who approached Ivar now. He was dressed in a black suit and wore a haunted expression.

“Good morning, Ivar,” the man said and offered his hand.

“Senator Gorman, please accept my condolences for your loss. What has happened in Mali … I should have spent more to secure the camp.”

“Do not blame yourself.” The senator gripped Ivar’s shoulder. “Jason knew the dangers. And he was proud to be involved in such an important project.”

Despite the reassurance, the senator was plainly uncomfortable with the topic, still raw from the death of his son. From a distance, the two men could almost be brothers. Sebastian Gorman stood as tall and weathered as Ivar, but he kept his white hair neatly trimmed, his suit pressed to a razor edge.

Ivar was surprised to find the senator here, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been. In the past, Gorman had proven to be unwavering in his determination. The U.S. senator had been instrumental in expanding biofuel research and development throughout the Western world. The summit here was important to his issue. And with an election coming up, the senator would find time to mourn for his son later.

Still, Ivar understood the man’s pain. He’d lost a wife and son in childbirth when he was in his early thirties. The tragedy had come close to destroying him back then. He had never remarried.

“Are we ready to get started?” the senator asked, stepping away.

“Yes. We should begin. We have much ground to cover.”

“Good.”

As the senator gathered everyone toward the bank of waiting chairs, Ivar stared at his back. He felt no twinge of guilt. Viatus meant the path of life. And sometimes that path was hard, requiring sacrifices to be made.

Like the death of Jason Gorman.

Upon Ivar’s orders, the young man had been murdered.

A tragic loss, but he could afford no regrets.

8
October 11, 8:14 A.M.
Rome, Italy

They had less than a minute. The unexpected guests that the innkeeper had warned about were headed up. Gray didn’t want to be there when they arrived.

He led everyone in a rush down the hall toward the hotel’s fire escape. It was just around the corner from his room. Reaching the window, he tugged it open and stepped aside for Rachel.

“Head down,” he ordered. “Get out of sight.”

Rachel clambered through the window and onto the iron ladder.

Gray pointed to Kowalski, poking him in the chest. “Stay with her.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he answered and followed.

Seichan stood two steps away in the hallway, her legs wide, her arms out, her hands cradling a black Sig Sauer pistol. She kept it pointed down the hall.

“Do you have another weapon?” he asked.

“I’ve got it covered. Get moving.”

Muffled voices arose down the hall, along with the creak of wooden floorboards. The assassins had reached their floor and were headed toward their room. The hotel’s convoluted layout had probably saved their lives, bought them just enough time to slip the ambush.

But not much more than that.

Gray backed to the window and ducked through. Seichan came next. Without even turning, she back-stepped cleanly through the open window, never dropping her guard of the hallway.

Rachel and Kowalski were already headed down. They were a floor below when shots suddenly fired up at them. Gray didn’t hear the blasts, but he did recognize the pings of ricochets and the puffs of brick dust from the wall.

Kowalski cursed, pulled Rachel behind him, and began a fast retreat back up the fire escape.

Gray spotted the shooter, half-hidden by a Dumpster. The bastards already had the alley exit covered. Seichan fired back. The gunman ducked away, but her pistol had no silencer. The blasts stung Gray’s ears and were surely loud enough to be heard by the assassins inside.

“Make for the roof!” he ordered.

The shooter below took potshots as they fled, but Seichan kept him pinned down, and the iron cage of the fire escape helped shelter them. Luckily, they didn’t have far to go. The hotel was only five stories high.

Reaching the top, Gray herded everyone away from the roof’s edge. He stared across the expanse of pigeon droppings, vent pipes, and graffiti-sprayed heating and cooling equipment. They needed another way down. Even now he heard boots landing hard on the fire escape’s iron railings. The others were headed up after them.

Gray pointed to the far side of the hotel. Another building abutted it. It was one story shorter. They had to get out of sight, or at least out of the direct line of fire.

They sprinted for the low wall that separated the two buildings. Gray reached it first and leaned over. A whitewashed metal ladder was bolted to the side of the hotel and led down to the lower building’s roof.

“Go!”

Rachel rolled over the edge and scrambled down the rungs. Kowalski didn’t bother to wait his turn. He grabbed the edge of the wall, hung by his fingers, and merely dropped. He landed on his backside on the tarpapered roof below.

A gunshot drew Gray’s attention around.

A black-masked head ducked below the fire escape on the far side.

“Now or never, Pierce!” Seichan warned.

She fired twice more, discouraging anyone else from showing themselves. Taking advantage of the cover, Gray flipped over the edge of the roof, grabbed the ladder, and ignored the rungs. Like a fireman on a pole, he slid down its length.

More shots echoed above.

As his heels hit the tar paper, he stared up. Seichan flew over the wall and snatched one-armed for the ladder. Her other hand still clenched her smoking pistol. In her haste, she missed her grip on the topmost rung and began a headlong tumble. She tried for a second hold, dropping her gun and reaching out. Fingertips caught for half a breath. Her pistol tumbled and struck near Gray’s toes. Her momentary grip ripped away.

She fell.

Gray lunged out and got under her. She landed heavily in his arms. The impact took him down to one knee, but he caught her. Momentarily stunned, she breathed hard, a hand clutched on Gray’s wrist.

Kowalski retrieved her gun, then helped them back to their feet.

Seichan shoved roughly out of Gray’s arms, took an unsteady step, then gained her balance. Turning, she cleanly plucked her pistol out of Kowalski’s fingers before he could react.

“Hey …” Kowalski stared at his empty hand as if the appendage had betrayed him.

“There’s another fire escape over here,” Rachel called to them. Her eyes momentarily flickered between Gray and Seichan.

They all hurried over. The top of the fire escape was sheltered behind a bulky ventilation unit. They began a rapid descent, leaping from landing to landing. This fire escape dumped into a different alley. It would buy them an extra half breath, but Gray knew that whatever net had been cast around the hotel was surely being extended. They had to escape before it fully closed around them.

At the end of the alleyway, a street opened. They headed toward it. With no way to identify the assassins, they were still in grave danger. They could stumble right into one of them and not even know it. They had to get well away from the area, out of the city.

Gray’s questioning glance slid from Rachel to Seichan. “Anyone have a car?”

“I do,” Rachel answered. “But it’s parked around the corner from the hotel.”

He shook his head. It was too dangerous to go back. And considering that the streets had already turned into a parking lot due to the morning gridlock, a car might not even serve them.

A growl on his left warned him of the danger. Gray leaped back as a motorcyclist sped through the stalled traffic, riding almost up on the narrow sidewalk. Kowalski was a second slower. The cyclist nearly clipped him, which only pissed the big man off.

“Screw you, Knievel!”

Kowalski shoved with both arms as the man passed.

The rider flew out of his seat. The cycle struck a parked car and toppled on its side. A second motorcyclist who hadn’t seen the altercation and was following the same winding path could not get out of the way in time. He was forced to drop his bike and skid along the street gutter.

Seichan stared at Gray and lifted an eyebrow.

Good enough, he answered her silently.

Seichan went for the first bike; Gray headed to the second.

They needed transportation.

Seichan’s pistol discouraged any complaints from the first rider. Catching on quickly, Rachel followed Gray. She flipped out her carabinieri ID and held it high, yelling in Italian, full of command. The second rider backed away from his fallen motorcycle.

Gray righted the bike and hitched his leg over it. Rachel climbed on behind him, hugging one arm around his waist.

Seichan had already mounted the other. Kowalski stood in place, not sure what to do. Seichan patted the leather seat behind her.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he said. “I don’t ride bitch behind anyone.”

Seichan still had her Sig Sauer in hand. She flipped it around and offered the butt end toward Kowalski. She couldn’t maneuver and fire at the same time.

It was like offering a bone to a dog.

Kowalski could not resist. He took the gun and climbed on behind her. “That’s more like it.”

They set off as police sirens sounded in the distance. Gray took the lead. Swerving back and forth through traffic, he skirted the creeping cars and dodged bicycles. Rachel shouted directions in his ear, guiding them toward the wider thoroughfares where the congestion wasn’t so tight. They slowly gained speed.

But they didn’t get far.

A squeal of brakes drew Gray’s attention around.

Behind them, a black Lamborghini peeled out of a side street, tires smoking, and aimed straight for Seichan and Kowalski. A black-jacketed figure leaned out the passenger window of the sports car and lifted a thick-barreled weapon to his shoulder. He aimed at the trailing motorcycle.

Gray recognized an M32 grenade launcher.

So did Seichan.

She tucked lower in her seat and gunned her engine, but in the tight traffic, there was nowhere to run.

With his target trapped, the gunman fired.

2:22 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Monk waited with Kat in her office within Sigma Command. They shared her leather sofa, sprawled together. Monk cradled Kat, appreciating the warmth of her body, the softness of her touch. While Sigma Command had a series of bunk rooms, neither of them would be able to sleep until they finally got word about Gray.

“I should be there with him,” Monk mumbled.

“He has Kowalski.”

Monk stared down at her.

“Okay,” she agreed. “That might make matters worse. But we don’t know for sure anything is even wrong.”

“He’s not answering his phone.”

Kat curled tighter to him. “He was meeting Rachel,” she said and cocked an eyebrow, leaving the implication hanging.

Monk wasn’t buying that explanation.

A long stretch of silence followed, with each lost in their own thoughts. Painter was continuing to pull strings to find out what was happening in Rome. Kat had also made further inquiries into the bombing at the Vatican. She was waiting for a comprehensive report from Interpol to come through. This moment of quiet was just the eye of the storm. Still, Monk took what he could.

He reached and placed a palm over her belly. Her hand rose to cover his. Their fingers entwined.

“Is it wrong to hope for a boy?” he asked.

She used her other hand to punch him halfheartedly in the leg. “Yes …”

Monk tightened his arms around her and teased. “But a boy … someone I can play catch with, shoot hoops with, go fishing …”

Kat wriggled, then sighed and leaned into him. “You can do all those things with a daughter, you sexist pig.”

“Did you call me a sexy pig?”

“Sexist… oh, never mind.”

He leaned down and kissed her lips. “I like sexy better.”

She mumbled between their lips. Monk could not make out her words, but after a moment more, a contented silence followed. A knock on the door interrupted them. They broke their embrace and sat up. Kat stood and crossed to the door, running a hand down her suit. She glared back at Monk, as if it were all his fault.

Kat opened the door to find Painter standing outside.

“Director—”

Painter cut her off and pointed down the hall. “I was on my way down to satellite com. We’ve got trouble in Rome.”

Monk gained his feet. “Gray?”

“Who else?” Painter set off down the hall.

8:21 A.M.
Rome, Italy

The Lamborghini drove straight at the trailing motorcycle. There was nothing Gray could do.

At the same moment the gunman fired his weapon, Kowalski blasted wildly with his pistol back at the car. The windshield spider-webbed. The car shimmied slightly—enough to throw off the aim of the gunman as he pulled the trigger.

From the grenade launcher, a spiraling trail of smoke rocketed out, passed over Kowalski’s head, and shot down the street. It struck the corner of a building at the next intersection.

Smoke, fire, and bricks blasted outward.

Panicked pedestrians fled in all directions. Cars rammed one another in the intersection. In the lead, Gray reached the crossroads first. He fought through the mess, jerking and swerving through the chaos and smoke, seeking every crack to make his escape.

Seichan and Kowalski closed the distance.

Behind them, the Lamborghini, blocked by the traffic, swerved onto the sidewalk. It accelerated, heedless of the pedestrians in the way.

Once past the intersection, the road cleared. Gray opened the throttle and shot down the street. Seichan kept to his right flank.

“Gray!” Rachel yelled in his ear. She unwrapped one arm from around his waist to point ahead.

Down the street, a second black Lamborghini fishtailed around a corner and sped straight at them. The first car closed from behind.

Rachel pointed to the left. “Stairs!”

Gray spotted an arched pedestrian walkway between two buildings. He turned sharply, braking and skidding on both tires for a full yard, then righted the bike. With a twist of the throttle, he shot toward the stone stairway. Seichan followed, skirting wider but keeping pace.

Gray heard a string of curses flowing from Kowalski, punctuated by pops from his pistol as he fired at the two sports cars.

Reaching the stairs, Gray downshifted and gunned the engine. Lifting up on his back tire, he hit the stairs and used momentum, balance, and a low gear to ratchet up the steps. Thankfully there was only one flight and the walkway flattened out. Still, the path was narrow and crooked.

Gray shot down the walkway. He didn’t slow. He trusted the guttural growl of the two motorcycles to clear the path of any pedestrians. Still, he risked a glance back. He had no view of the street, but he was sure a gunman or two had been dropped off to give chase. The cars were probably circling around to meet them at the other end.

But where did this walkway end?

Gray had his answer as the path suddenly emptied into a wide plaza. A roadway circled its outer edge. As he shot into the open, Gray gaped at the massive ancient structure that filled the center of the space ahead of him. It climbed high into the sky.

The Coliseum.

But he had no time to sightsee.

“Got company!” Kowalski bellowed and pointed to the right. Gray turned. The two Lamborghinis swung into the circling street. “Gray!” Rachel said and pointed to the left.

A third Lamborghini, as sleek and black as the others, shot into view. Somebody had plenty of money to spare.

With no choice, Gray shot straight across the street, cutting through all lanes of traffic and out onto the pedestrian plaza that circled the Coliseum. It was a park of cement walkways, grassy lawns, and stretches of blacktop. Nimbleness was their only hope of escape. And speed.

Unfortunately, the same described a Lamborghini.

All three sports cars left the roadway, angled into the plaza, and closed toward them from both sides.

Gray had no choice.

If it was a race they wanted …

2:23 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Ensconced before the bank of monitors, Painter stared at the satellite feed from the National Reconnaissance Office. It showed a view of an open plaza in the center of Rome. An ancient amphitheater filled the center. The Coliseum looked like a giant stone eye staring back at him.

“Zoom in closer,” Painter ordered the technician.

“Are you sure that’s Gray?” Monk asked. He and Kat flanked Painter on either side of the monitor.

“The explosion was a block from his hotel. Reports from the police describe a chase under way outside the Coliseum.”

The image on the screen swelled and swept down upon the plaza. Details grew less distinct. But two black cars clearly raced around the periphery of the stone amphitheater. Ahead, a pair of motorcycles sped down walkways and across grassy lawns. One of the bikes shot off the top of a stairway, landed on its back tire, and sped away.

“Yeah,” Monk said with appreciation. “That’s got to be Gray.”

The two cars were rapidly closing the distance.

“There!” Kat said and pointed at the screen.

A third car, coming from the opposite direction, aimed straight for the two bikes. A small explosion erupted near one of the motorcycles, sending a trash can and a section of brick wall high into the air.

“Grenade,” Painter muttered.

What was going on?

Pinned on three sides, the two bikes turned and fled along the only path open to them.

Kat’s voice turned incredulous. “They aren’t … they can’t think …”

Monk leaned closer. “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely Gray.”

9
October 11, 8:23 A.M.
Rome, Italy

Gray leaned hard over the handlebars. Rachel hugged tight to him. He aimed straight for the massive stone structure. It rose fifteen stories at its highest point, climbing in towering levels of immense arches and colossal columns. At the lowest level, each archway entrance was sealed by a tall steel gate, but directly ahead was the main entrance, where tourists normally lined up.

Gray shot straight toward it.

The Coliseum was not yet open to the public at this early hour, but the gates were open, and the crowds had already begun to gather in anticipation. The gunfire and blasts had chased most of them clear. Still, clutches of people took refuge wherever they could. A pair of men dressed as gladiators had even climbed one of the plaza’s trees.

The presence of tourists and bystanders also kept the armed police who guarded the site wary and cautious, discouraging them from shooting out of hand. The guards had cleared the entrance site.

With the way conveniently open, Gray shot toward the main gate.

A single guard stepped into view, ready to defend the site. He leveled his weapon and yelled a warning at them. Rachel screamed back at him. She waved her arm, holding her carabinieri credentials high.

The man hesitated, his face clouded by confusion.

It was enough.

Gray shot past him as he leaped to the side. Seichan followed. They blasted into the outer passageway that circled the central arena. Lined by archways and held up by columns, the enclosed shadowy space was cavernous. The roar of the cycles echoed off the walls, growing into a deafening crescendo.

A chatter of gunfire drew his attention to the left. One of the Lamborghinis kept pace out in the sunlit plaza. A gunman fired an assault rifle out the passenger window. But the stone walls and steel gates shielded them. Sparks spat off the steel.

A loud splintering crash sounded behind them.

Gray glanced over his shoulder. A second Lamborghini rammed through the gateway and gave chase inside the space. It was unfortunately vast enough to accommodate the small sports car.

A fiery explosion drew Gray’s attention back around. One of the steel gates, bent and smoking, blasted into the passageway ahead. The third Lamborghini shot through the wreckage and skidded to a stop, blocking the way.

A dark figure leaned out the window, leveling his smoking weapon straight at them.

“Go right!” Rachel yelled and pointed to a nearby stone ramp.

Obeying, he made a hard turn, leaning out with his knee. The bike skidded, tilted precariously, too precariously. He burned his kneecap across the stone as the bike began to fall. Gritting his teeth, he willed the bike back up.

In the end, the angle saved his life. A loud boom deafened, and a spiraling contrail of smoke shot past the tilted bike, missing Gray by inches. He felt the burn of its passage across his cheek.

The grenade rocketed away and slammed straight into the windshield of the other Lamborghini. A flaming blast blew out its windows and flipped the car over on its side.

As searing heat washed outward, Gray gunned for the ramp. Seichan and Kowalski had already skirted around one of the massive support columns and converged toward them. The two bikes reached the ramp together and shot down a short shadowy passageway and back into sunlight.

At the end of the ramp, the full extent of the stadium opened. It climbed in four massive levels, covering six acres. Though the amphitheater had been damaged over the centuries by vandals, fires, earthquakes, and war, it still held an ageless grandeur, a testament to time and history. Directly ahead stretched the arena itself, where great battles had been fought and death was a sport. Long ago, the original wooden floor had rotted away and exposed the underground maze of stone passages and cells that once housed animals, slaves, and gladiators.

A modern elevated boardwalk now crossed over the open pit and ended at a flat stage on the far side. Gray took advantage of it. Without slowing, he led the way across it, speeding straight down the center of the narrow boardwalk. The roar of the pair of cycles echoed across the space, dredging up the ghosts of ancient spectators as they clapped and bellowed for blood.

And the ghosts would not be disappointed today.

A fresh barrage of gunfire erupted behind them. In his rearview mirror, Gray spotted a pair of gunmen taking up positions at the end of the boardwalk. They had combat assault rifles at their shoulders. After the first wild hail of bullets, Seichan was forced to drop her motorcycle, her rear tire blown. The bike skidded on its side. Seichan and Kowalski rolled across the planks, tangled together.

Kowalski tried to get up on his knees, but Seichan tackled him before he took a bullet to the head. Together, they tumbled off the boardwalk and vanished into the pit below.

It was the only option.

Exposed and out in the open, Gray and Rachel would never make it to the far side. Once the assassins secured their positions and steadied their aim, their prey would be picked off. Gray braked to a hard stop. He knew he had less than a second. He twisted, grabbed Rachel around the waist, and rolled her off the bike to the boardwalk.

Bullets chewed across the planks straight at them.

Gray held tight and continued to roll. He took them over the edge of the boardwalk and down into the darkness of the pit.

2:35 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter leaned in closer to the monitor. “Can you zoom in any tighter?”

The satellite technician shook his head and sat back. “This is the best resolution I can manage from this satellite. I can run the current data through a high-res filter, but compiling it will take hours.”

Painter turned to Kat. She was on the phone. He met her eyes.

“Italian military is responding,” Kat said. “They’re ten minutes out. Local police have the area locked down.”

Painter stared back at the screen. They had lost sight of the motorcycles as the pair shot into the Coliseum. But seconds later they reappeared, racing across the center of the arena. The detail was poor, little more than a vague representation. But as they watched, one bike suddenly spun and skidded to a stop. Seconds later the other braked and stopped. Movement blurred around the spots, then all seemed to go dead still.

The resolution was not fine enough to tell if there were any bodies on the ramp.

Monk leaned over the technician’s shoulder. “Sir…” He pointed and drew Painter’s attention back to the screen. “I think I see something again. On the bridge.”

The technician nodded. “Looks like two figures. Maybe three.”

His finger traced the barest flicker of pixels on the screen. They flowed toward the downed motorcycles. Even with such low resolution, Painter recognized the stalking pattern of true hunters.

He mumbled to the screen, half plea, half prayer. “Get the hell out of there, Gray…”

8:36 A.M.
Rome, Italy

Rachel leaned on Gray’s shoulder. Each step sent a jolt of pain up her right leg. She had wrenched her knee tumbling into the subterranean region of the Coliseum. As she hopped alongside him, she searched around the space.

With the sun still low, deep shadows covered them. She had learned from Uncle Vigor that these lower levels were called the hypogeum, which simply meant “underground.” It was here that all manner of beasts had been housed—lions, elephants, tigers, giraffes—along with slaves and gladiators. Crude elevators raised and lowered cages or elaborate set pieces.

But all that was left of the spectacle were the crumbling ruins of walls, blind cubbies, and tiny cells. Lacking any roofs, the upper level was left exposed to the sun and rain. Grass and weeds covered the floor, while thick moss matted the walls. Due to the fragile nature of the ancient structures and the danger of sudden collapses, the level was out of bounds for tourists—but not for archaeologists. Uncle Vigor had once sneaked Rachel down here when she was a teenager.

If I could just get my bearings…

Gray suddenly stopped. Furtive movement sounded behind them: the scuff of stone, the heavy rush of breath. They ducked back into one of the cells. Two figures appeared.

Rachel felt Gray sag with relief. “Seichan…”

The woman hissed at him and lifted a finger to her lips. Kowalski trailed her. Blood covered half his face, running thickly from a jagged cut above his eye. He also lifted a hand to warn them to be quiet.

Rachel then heard it, too.

The tramp of boots on the boardwalk overhead.

The gunmen had not fled as Rachel had hoped. They still hunted their prey.

Seichan pointed up, then shoved her arm out. Her pantomime was clear. If they stayed directly under the boardwalk, they’d be less likely to be spotted. But that meant moving as silently as possible.

Gray nodded and began to head toward the far side of the hypogeum. Rachel tightened her grip and stopped him. He stared back at her questioningly. She knew the layout of these levels. If they followed the boardwalk, they’d just hit a solid wall. Only a few ways still led out of the hypogeum.

She pointed along their path, made a chopping motion on her arm, and shook her head. It was military sign language for dead end. Turning, she pointed toward an exit few people knew about. Her uncle had shown it to her long ago. But to reach that spot, they’d have to abandon the shelter of the boardwalk and head out into the exposed maze.

Gray studied her with his face tight, his eyes hard pieces of blue ice.

Are you sure?

Rachel nodded. His fingers tightened on her shoulder, thanking her, reassuring her. For just a flash, she wanted those arms around her, holding her just as tightly. But he let go and crouched with Kowalski. They whispered too low to hear.

Seichan drew next to her. She also kept her attention on the two Americans. Rachel didn’t doubt the woman could read their lips. Rachel glanced sidelong at her. A purplish bruise was forming on Seichan’s cheek. Rachel also noted how much weight she’d lost since they’d first met years ago. Her face was more gaunt, hollow and haunted around the eyes. It left her looking like something carved out of stone, hard and unyielding. Still, there remained a cold fire in her dark green gaze.

Gray slid back and drew them all into a crouch under the boardwalk. He glanced up, listening as one of the hunters passed overhead. The gunmen were watching both halves of the hypogeum. Any flicker of movement, and both would be on them. From their high vantage, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

As the assassin moved past, Gray whispered, “We’ll need a distraction. Kowalski’s got one round left in his pistol. It’s not much but—”

The cautious tromp of boots suddenly changed cadence. The slow step turned into a heavy-footed run. Boots pounded toward their position.

Gray’s whispering must have been heard.

Kowalski lifted his pistol, ready to shoot, but Seichan placed a cautioning hand on his shoulder.

The pounding passed their position and continued down the boardwalk, heading toward the far side. They were running off. Something had spooked them.

“The police…” Gray guessed aloud.

“‘Bout time,” Kowalski said.

Seichan did not share their relief. Her expression soured. She was on several terrorist watch lists, including Interpol’s.

Before they could make any decision, a new noise intruded. It came suddenly. The thump-thump of a helicopter. Gray stepped out from under the boardwalk and stared up. Rachel joined him.

A wasp-bodied black helicopter swept over the rim of the coliseum.

“That’s not the polizia,” Rachel said.

In fact, there were no markings on the craft.

As it banked over the stadium, a side door cranked open in the helicopter.

Gray grabbed Rachel’s shoulder. “Run!”

It was clear now why the gunmen had fled. Not from the police, but from a new level of assault. Why shoot fish in a barrel when depth charges worked so much better?

“This way!” Rachel yelled.

She ran, ignoring the protest from her knee, adrenaline burning away pain. She headed along a curving wall lined by stone cells. The others followed.

“What’s going on?” Kowalski bellowed.

Rachel took the first right passage, then the next left. She ended up at a dead end. “Back!”

They scrambled around. Rachel kept hold of Gray’s shoulder, limping. While she knew where the exit was located, she did not have this rat maze memorized. Backpedaling, she found the correct turn this time. Ahead, a straight passage ended at a narrow archway. That was it! The arch marked a staircase down to a lower level of the hypogeum.

She had started toward it when Gray grabbed her from behind and shouldered her back into one of the side cells. The others piled in, too. Gray covered her as a thunderous whump sounded that shook the walls and stones underfoot. A moment later, a wash of flames billowed past overhead, rolling smoke and reeking of poisonous chemicals.

Gray shoved her back out of the shelter. She stumbled, deaf, eyes watering. Overhead, the helicopter swept past, swirling smoke and flames. A black steel barrel was rolled to the lip of the open hatch.

Oh, no…

Panicked, knowing what was coming, Rachel sprinted down the passageway, gasping in pain as she hurdled rocks and sections of tumbled wall. The arched opening gaped ten yards away. Focused on her goal, her heel landed on a moss-encrusted stone. Her foot slipped, and her leg twisted. She stumbled—but never hit the ground.

Gray scooped her around the waist and carried her the last few steps. They dove together through the archway. Bodies shoved into them from behind. They fell as a group, tripping, tumbling down the flight of stone steps.

They landed in a pile at the bottom as the world exploded above them.

The blast, striking near the opening, immediately deafened them. Pressure slammed Rachel’s ears and felt like it cracked her skull. Rocks tumbled and bounced. Flames gusted down the throat of the stairwell, washing across the roof overhead. Her skin burned. Her lungs could draw no air.

Then in a rush, the pressure popped. The flames were sucked away, back out of the tunnel. Cool air drafted up from the lower levels and washed over them.

Hands shoved and dragged. They crawled away from the stairs down into the murky lower passages. After a few yards, they all slowly gained their feet. Rachel used the walls to haul herself up. She panted, felt like vomiting, fought the rising gorge. She took great gulps of cool air.

“Keep going,” Gray urged.

Rachel leaned on the wall as they stumbled away. They had to keep moving. The concussions and fires could drop the upper level on top of them. They had to get clear.

“Can you find that exit?”

She coughed. “I think… maybe…”

Gray grabbed her elbow. “Rachel.”

She nodded, regaining her balance, both inside and outside. “Yes. This way.” She pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. The meager glow didn’t cast much light, but it was better than nothing.

Holding on to Gray’s shoulder, she set off. It wasn’t far, but this level was a rabbit warren of cells, passages, and cave-ins. She headed out, lost in the past as much as the present.

She remembered Uncle Vigor taking her down here, tantalizing her with tales of heroes and monsters, of strange beasts and great pageantry. He had also told her about one of the grandest of shows, a rare event held at the Coliseum. A spectacle called a naumachiae.

She spoke aloud as she led the others. “Before these underground levels were built, early in the Roman empire, they used to flood this area, creating a great lake in the middle of the Coliseum. Famous sea battles were reenacted here, along with demonstrations of swimming horses and bulls.”

Kowalski trailed behind them, dusty, bloody, and burned. “Right now, a swim sounds pretty damn good to me.”

“What did they do with all the water after the show?” Gray asked.

“You’ll see,” Rachel said.

Another two turns and they ended up at a wall. An iron grate sealed a narrow, low passageway. Even in the meager light, it plainly led down at a steep angle.

“They cleared this just last year, confirming what Uncle Vigor already knew.” Rachel unlatched the gate and pulled it open.

Before she could explain more, a loud rumbling crash echoed across the space. Rock dust wafted in a thick cloud and rolled over them.

“The bombs are triggering a cave-in,” Rachel said.

Closer at hand, a marble block fell from the roof a yard away and crashed heavily to the floor. More groans and rumbles followed. Like the first tip of a domino, the entire level was beginning to collapse on top of them.

“This way,” Rachel said. “Hurry.”

She ducked into the steep passage and led the way down. Behind her the others followed single file. They hadn’t taken more than a half-dozen steps when the floor shook, accompanied by an ominous rumble of thunder. More dust filled the air, choking and blinding them.

Rachel hurried onward, covering her mouth with her arm. She felt blindly ahead of her. The steep floor grew even steeper. Rachel used one hand to brace herself and held forth her glowing cell phone in the other.

“How much farther?” Gray gasped out.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t know.

After a long silent minute, a trickling echo reached her. She rushed onward. In her haste, she lost her footing on the floor, landed on her backside, and slid, losing her cell phone. It skittered ahead of her—then vanished.

Unable to stop, she followed it. For a gut-wrenching moment the world dropped under her. She fell through open air. A small scream escaped her, but she landed in a shallow stream of frigid water. The fall had only been a meter or so.

“Watch out!” Gray called.

Rachel rolled clear as the others slid, skidded, and dropped into the water with her. Rachel retrieved her cell phone from the edge of the stream. It still glowed. She held it up.

They were in a long stone tube, clearly man-made from the crudely hewn slabs. A wan stream flowed across its bottom.

“Where are we?” Gray asked.

“Old city sewers,” Rachel answered and began to follow the flow. “It was how the ancient Romans drained the flooded stadium.” The others splashed behind her.

Kowalski sighed heavily. “I should’ve known. A tour of Rome with Pierce had to end up in the damn sewers.”

10
October 11, 3:12 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter readied for the battle to come. He sat at his desk. He was as prepared as could be expected. After the long night, he’d taken a short nap, showered, and changed into a fresh set of clothes.

Hours ago he’d learned that Gray and Kowalski were safe and headed out of Rome. Commander Pierce had already given a sketchy report of events in Italy, but he needed to keep moving. A full debriefing would follow once he was settled in a secure location outside the city.

The office intercom buzzed. Brant spoke crisply. “Sir, I have General Metcalf for you.”

Painter had already been alerted that the head of DARPA was arriving at Sigma Command. It was a rare visit. And not normally a good sign.

Painter pressed the intercom button. “Brant, send the general straight in.”

Seconds later the door swung open. Painter stood as General Gregory Metcalf stalked into his office. He entered with his hat under his arm and his face locked into deep furrows.

Painter stepped around the desk to shake the man’s hand, but Metcalf headed straight to a chair, tossed his cap on the desk, and waved Painter back to his own chair.

“Do you have any idea of the political shitstorm blowing out of Italy?” Metcalf said as introduction.

Crossing back behind his desk, Painter sank into his chair after Metcalf took his seat. “I’m aware of the situation, General. We’re monitoring all the chatter across various intelligence channels.”

“First, a firefight at a hotel, then a street chase with a trail of carnage left behind it, and to top it all off, one of the world’s Seven Wonders is left firebombed. And you inform me that one of our… your operatives was at the heart of it all?”

Painter breathed through his nose. He kept the tips of his fingers resting on the edge of his desk. “Yes, sir. One of our best field agents.”

“Best?” Metcalf said with sharp sarcasm. “I’d hate to see your worst.”

Painter let some bite enter his own voice. “He was ambushed. He was doing what was necessary to protect an asset. To keep them all alive.”

“At what cost? As I understand it, he was pursuing a matter that was a domestic Italian concern. That their own intelligence services, along with Interpol, had things well in hand. If your agent’s involvement exposed or damaged—”

Painter cut him off. “General, the case has implications far beyond Italy. It was why I asked to have this face-to-face meeting. So far no one knows Sigma is involved, and I wish to keep it that way.”

Metcalf studied Painter, waiting for more details. Painter let him stew. He imagined that lesser men broke under that steely gaze. Painter didn’t blink.

Metcalf finally huffed out his exasperation and leaned back. “So then tell me what happened.”

Painter allowed his shoulders to relax. He reached to his desk, opened a file, and slid a photo toward the general. “Here is a forensic photo of the victim killed at the Vatican.”

Metcalf took the picture and examined it. His eyebrows pinched together, his equivalent of raw shock. “It’s the same mark,” he said. “Branded into the forehead, like Senator Gorman’s son.”

“And the Princeton professor,” Painter agreed. He knew Metcalf had already read the report on the events at the university.

“But what does this priest have to do with what happened in Africa? I understand Jason’s connection to the university professor, but this?” He slid the photo back to Painter. “It makes no sense.”

“The field agent in Italy—Commander Gray Pierce—has recovered and protected a vital piece to that puzzle. A piece that someone was willing to destroy the Roman Coliseum to acquire.”

“And we have it.”

Painter nodded.

“What is it?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out. It’s an old artifact with possible ties to an excavation site in England. I’d rather keep the details quiet for now. Limited to a need-to-know basis.”

“And you don’t think I need to know?”

Painter stared at him. “Do you really want to know?”

Metcalf’s eyes had at first narrowed angrily, then edged toward some dark amusement. “Good point. After what happened in Rome, maybe not. Plausible deniability might be the best course for now.”

“I appreciate that,” Painter said. And he meant it. It was the widest degree of latitude he’d ever gotten from the man.

And yet he needed more.

“Whatever is going on stretches far beyond the borders of Italy,” Painter continued. “And the best way to root out the truth is to keep our involvement quiet.”

Metcalf nodded, agreeing.

“Before events transpired in Italy, I had come to the conclusion that we needed more information about the genetic project being conducted at the Red Cross camp.”

“The farm run by the Viatus Corporation.”

“So far the deaths of the two Americans—Jason and his professor—are tied to that project. How and why we don’t know. But that’s where we need to extend the investigation. We need more details. Information that can only be found in one place.”

“You’re talking about Viatus itself.”

“There’s a conference starting tomorrow in Oslo. The World Food Summit. The CEO of Viatus, Ivar Karlsen, is speaking at the conference. Someone needs to corner him, get him to talk, to open up about the true nature of the research that was under way in Africa.”

“I’ve heard about Karlsen’s reputation. He’s no pushover. Strong-arming him will get you nowhere.”

“I understand.”

“He also has powerful friends—including here in the U.S.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

Painter had a complete dossier on the man and his company. Viatus had made vast inroads into the United States: financing a biofuel consortium in the Midwest, partnering with a major petrochemical company that produced fertilizers and herbicides, and of course sharing several lucrative patents with Monsanto for genetically modified seed strains.

Metcalf continued. “In fact, I already know about the summit in Oslo. A mutual friend of ours will be attending. Someone who’s been riding DARPA for answers to his son’s murder.”

“Senator Gorman?” That surprised Painter.

“He’s already in Oslo. Despite the circumstances surrounding his son’s death, he remains a close associate of Ivar Karlsen. You don’t want to make either man angry. Any interrogation of Karlsen will have to be done with the greatest discretion.”

“I understand. Then that further supports the second reason I asked for this meeting.”

“And what’s that?”

“Due to the delicate nature of the matter and the threat of international ramifications, I’d like to conduct Karlsen’s interview myself.”

Metcalf hadn’t expected that. He took a moment to digest the request. “You want to go out into the field? To Oslo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who will oversee Sigma while you’re gone?”

“Kathryn Bryant. She’s been acting as my second-in-command. She has a background in Naval Intelligence with ties throughout the international communities. She’ll be perfectly suited to maintain command and coordinate any field op.”

Metcalf leaned back as he pondered this plan.

Painter knew the man had a firm code about personal accountability. It was why he had climbed so swiftly up the ranks in the Armed Forces. Painter pressed that very issue now.

“You’ve already explained how thin the ice is under Sigma,” he said with conviction. “Give us this chance to prove ourselves. And if this blows up, let it be by my own hand. I’ll take full responsibility.”

Metcalf remained silent. He again fixed Painter with that steely gaze. Painter matched it, as firm and unyielding.

A slight nod and the man stood up. He held out his hand this time. Painter shook it across his desk.

Before Metcalf let go, he squeezed a notch harder. “Tread lightly over there, Director Crowe. And speak just as softly.”

“Don’t worry. It’s what my ancestors are known for. We’re very light-footed.”

This earned a small crooked smile as Metcalf let go and headed toward the door. “Perhaps. But in this case, I was referring to Teddy Roosevelt.”

As the general left, Painter remained standing. He had to give the guy credit. He was right about Teddy. The motto was fitting for any agent heading out into the field.

Speak softly—but carry a big stick.

4:10 P.M.

“And those were the words Director Crowe used?” Kat asked.

Monk stood in front of her. She was seated on the sofa in her office. “His exact words. He needs a big stick.”

“But do you have to be that big stick?”

Monk crossed to her and dropped to one knee, getting eye-to-eye with his wife. He knew this was going to be a hard sell. He had spoken to Painter thirty minutes ago. The director had offered Monk a field position, to accompany the big man himself to Oslo, Norway. Still, it had taken until now to get up enough courage to broach the subject with Kat.

“It’s really nothing more than a glorified interview,” Monk promised. “Like I’ve been doing here in the States these last months. This assignment’s only a little farther away.”

She wouldn’t meet his eye. She stared down at her hands, which were clenched together in her lap. Her voice was low. “Yeah, and look how easy your last assignment ended up being.”

Monk scooted closer and pushed between her knees. “We all made it out safely.”

In fact, he had just checked on Andrea Solderitch. She’d already been moved to a guarded location, protected by Homeland, personally watched over by Scot Harvath, an agent Monk fully trusted to keep her safe.

“That’s not the point,” Kat said.

Monk recognized that. He reached forward, slid his hands under the bottom of her blouse, and gently palmed her bare belly. Her skin was hot under his palms. She trembled at his touch.

“I know the point,” Monk said huskily. “My memory might be a little like Swiss cheese, but I don’t forget what’s truly important, not for one second of any day. And that’s why I’m going to make sure nothing happens.”

“You can’t control everything.”

Monk stared up at her. “Neither can you, Kat.”

Her eyes remained wounded. He knew how hard she had fought to watch over him during his recovery, how she hated being apart. Even now. Her protectiveness was born out of raw fear. For months she had believed Monk was dead. He could only imagine what that must have been like. So, though it wasn’t healthy for either of them, he didn’t press the matter.

Even now, he refused to force her hand.

If she didn’t want him to go, he wouldn’t.

“I hate the idea of you out in the field,” Kat said. She pulled his hands out of her shirt and clutched them tightly between hers. “But I’d hate myself more for telling you not to.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said quietly, suddenly feeling selfish. “You know that. I get it. There will be other missions. When we’re both ready.”

Kat stared hard at him. Then she sagged slightly, rolled her eyes, and reached out to grab the back of his head. She pulled him forward. Her lips hovered over his. “Always the martyr, aren’t you, Kokkalis?”

“What—?”

She silenced him with her lips, pressing hard, parting her mouth, tasting him. Then she pulled back, leaving him gasping, leaning forward for more.

“Just make sure you come back with all your parts intact this time,” she said, poking his prosthetic with a finger.

Always the slower of the two, Monk struggled to catch up with her thoughts. “Are you saying—?”

“Oh, dear God, Monk. Yes, you can go.”

Joy, along with a large measure of relief, swept through him. He cracked a huge smile, but it just as suddenly slipped into something more lascivious.

Kat read his thoughts and pressed a finger over his mouth. “No, not even one joke about you being a big stick.” “Oh, c’mon, babe… would I do that?”

She removed her finger, leaned down, and kissed him again. He slid his hands under her rear and dragged her onto his lap.

He whispered as he pulled her fully to him, “Why say it, when I can prove it?”

10:15 P.M.
Terni, Italy

Gray stood guard before the window, staring out at the dark garden behind the old country farmhouse. He also had a view of the parking lot and the nearby Via Tiberina road. They had traveled eighty miles to reach the small town in the Umbria region, noted for its ancient Roman ruins and baths.

Rachel had suggested the location. The two-story farmhouse had been converted into a hotel, but still retained much of its original charm, with chestnut beams, bricked archways, and iron chandeliers. It was also remote and off the beaten path.

Still, Gray refused to let his guard down. After events in Rome, he wasn’t taking any chances. And he wasn’t the only one.

Down in the garden, he noted a flicker of red ash. He hadn’t known Seichan smoked—but then again, he knew almost nothing about her. She was an unknown quantity and a needless risk. He knew the standing orders out of Washington: capture her at any cost.

Still, she’d guarded their backs today, saved his life in the past.

As he watched her patrol the grounds, he heard the water shut off in the neighboring bathroom with a heavy thunk of the pipes. Rachel had finished her shower. After an hour in the sewers, they’d all needed some time with soap and very hot water.

They also needed a moment to regroup, to decide on a course of action. Moments later, Rachel exited the steaming bathroom, barefooted, wrapped only in a towel, her hair still dripping.

“Shower’s free,” she said, then glanced around the room. “Where’s your partner?”

“Kowalski’s gone downstairs. Fetching a late dinner from the kitchen.”

“Oh.” She remained standing in the doorway, her arms around her chest, suddenly awkward. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. They hadn’t been truly alone together since crashing back into each other’s lives. He knew he should turn away, allow her a moment of privacy, but he couldn’t.

She slowly stepped over to the bed, still favoring her left leg. Tylenol and a brace had helped her wrenched knee, but she needed at least a day of rest. On the bed was a stack of new clothes, still tagged and wrapped in tissue: for her, jeans, a midnight blue blouse, and a calf-length coat.

As she walked, she clung to her towel like a shield. There was no need. Gray knew intimately what lay under that towel. What his hands hadn’t explored, his lips had. But it wasn’t just the flesh that stirred him now. It was the memory of warmth, of soft words in the night, of promises that were never fulfilled.

He finally had to turn back to the window—driven away not by shyness, nor even out of politeness, but from an overwhelming sense of loss for what might have been.

He heard her shuffle by the bed, listened to the rustle of tissue paper. She didn’t return to the bathroom to change. She shed her towel and dressed behind him. He sensed no seduction in her boldness, more an act of defiance, challenging him, knowing it both pained him and shamed him.

Then again, maybe it was all his imagination.

Once dressed, she joined him at the window and stood at his shoulder. “Still keeping watch, I see,” she said softly.

He didn’t answer.

She stood with him for a quiet moment. Down in the gardens, the sudden flare of a match illuminated Seichan’s form as she lit another cigarette. Gray felt Rachel stiffen beside him. She glanced at him, then turned swiftly away and crossed back toward the bed.

Before either could speak, a rap on the door drew their attention. Kowalski entered, burdened by a wide wooden tray and two bottles of wine under one arm.

“Room service,” he said.

As he stepped inside, he quickly noted the discarded towel in the middle of the floor. His eyes flickered between Rachel and Gray, then rolled slightly. He carried his burden to the room’s table, whistling under his breath.

He left the tray on the table, but kept hold of both bottles of wine. “If you need me, I’m going to take a long hot bath. And I do mean long. I may be in there for at least an hour.”

He glanced significantly at Gray in what passed as subtlety for the big man.

Rachel’s face turned to a pale shade of crimson.

Gray was saved from further embarrassment by the ringing of his cell phone on the bedside table. He checked his watch. That had to be Painter. He collected the phone and moved back to the window.

“Pierce here,” he said as the secure connection clicked through.

“So are you settled?” the director asked.

“For the moment.”

Gray appreciated focusing back on the matter at hand. Kowalski headed into the bathroom with his two bottles of wine. Rachel sat on the bed and listened to his end of the conversation. Over the next fifteen minutes, Gray and Painter compared notes: three murders on three continents, the violence perpetrated to cover up what was going on, the significance of the pagan symbol that seemed to link everything together.

Painter described his plan to travel to Norway to investigate Viatus and its CEO.

“And Monk is going with you?” Gray asked, both surprised and glad for his friend.

“Along with John Creed, our new resident geneticist. He was the one who decrypted the data from Jason Gorman’s e-mail.” Painter’s voice firmed to a more serious tone. “Which brings us to what Lieutenant Verona discovered, what someone apparently wanted destroyed.”

“The mummified finger.”

Gray glanced at Rachel. They’d had a long discussion on the train ride out of Rome. Father Marco Giovanni had been working at an excavation site in northern England, somewhere in the mountainous and remote region that bordered Scotland. They still had no more details about the excavation. All they knew was that Vigor’s former student had been researching the roots of Celtic Christianity, when pagan worship merged with Catholicism.

Gray had already related some details to Painter. But he hadn’t expanded on what Rachel had divulged on the train.

“Director, maybe you’d better hear this from Lieutenant Verona herself. I’m not sure of the significance, but it’s worth noting if only for thoroughness.”

“Very well. Put her on.”

Gray crossed back to the bed and passed her the cell phone. “I thought you should tell Painter what you learned.”

She nodded. He remained standing near the bedpost. After a few pleasantries, Rachel cut to the strange matter of the priest’s obsession.

“Before everything went to hell in Rome,” Rachel explained, “I had acquired a list of published papers and treatises written by Father Giovanni, some going back to when he was a student. It was plain he was fixated on a specific mythology of the Catholic faith, an incarnation of the Virgin Mary known as the Black Madonna.”

Gray listened with half an ear as she explained. He was familiar with the subject. He had studied comparative religions before joining Sigma and knew the history and mysteries surrounding the cult of the Black Madonna. Over the centuries, going back to the very start of Christianity, statues and paintings had appeared that depicted the Mother of Christ with dark or black skin. These came to be revered and treasured. Over four hundred of the images still existed in Europe, a few dating all the way back to the eleventh century. And a large number of them were still worshiped and venerated: the Black Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland, the Madonna of Hermits in Switzerland, the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. The list went on and on.

Despite this ongoing veneration, controversy continued to surround these unique Madonnas. While some claimed miraculous properties associated with them, others declared the dark skin was due to nothing more than accumulated candle soot or the natural darkening of wooden statues or old marble. The Catholic Church avoided acknowledging any significance or spiritual powers for these incarnations.

Rachel continued with Father Giovanni’s fixation. “Marco was convinced that Celtic Christianity built its foundations upon the Black Madonna, that this image represented the fusion of the old pagan Earth Mother with the new worship of the Virgin Mary. He spent his career searching for this connection, the true source behind the mythology.”

Rachel paused, plainly listening to a question from Painter, then answered, “I don’t know if he ever found that source. But he found something, something worth dying over.”

Rachel stopped again to listen, then said, “Right. I agree. I’ll pass you back to Commander Pierce.”

Gray accepted the phone, lifted it to his ear, and returned to the window. “Sir?”

“Considering Rachel’s story, it seems plain what your next step must be.”

Gray had no doubt of the correct answer. “Investigate the excavation site in England.”

“Precisely. I don’t know how the murders in Africa and Princeton tie to Father Giovanni’s research. But there must be some connection. I’ll follow up in Oslo concerning the genetic research—you see what that mummified finger points to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you need any additional personnel for this mission? Or can you manage with Joseph Kowalski and Lieutenant Verona?”

“I think the leaner we move, the better.”

Despite his best effort, a strained edge tightened his voice. There remained one detail he had never divulged to Painter Crowe. Gray stared down into the garden, to the crimson glow of a cigarette. He hated to lie to the director, even if it was only a sin of omission, but if Gray told Sigma Command about their new ally here, Painter would have no choice but to send a team to collect her, to cart her off to an interrogation camp.

Gray could not allow that.

Still, he hesitated.

Was he making the right choice? Or was he needlessly putting the entire mission in jeopardy?

Gray turned from the window to discover Rachel staring at him. In her eyes, he recognized that his decision threatened more than just his own life. Still, he also remembered a pained plea two years ago, one full of need and hope.

Trust me, Gray. If only a little.

Facing the dark window again, Gray stared at his reflection. After a long steadying breath, he spoke into the phone.

“We’ll be fine on our own.”

11
October 11, 11:22 P.M.
Oslo, Norway

Ivar Karlsen pulled on the heavy oak door, its planks strapped with hammered iron. Snow swirled through the moonless night and whipped in sudden gusts into the narrow arched entry. Cold pinched his exposed cheeks, while the iron handle was so frozen it burned his fingers as he hauled open the door. The day’s storm had indeed turned into the first true snowfall by evening.

The harsh weather stirred Ivar, got his heart pounding, his breath blowing strongly. Perhaps he did indeed have Viking blood running through his veins as his old bestemor claimed.

Ducking through the door, he stamped his boots to dislodge the caked snow. A dark stairway lay ahead, leading down into the depths below Akershus Castle. Ivar threw back the hood of his fleece-lined sherling coat and pulled a flashlight from his pocket. Clicking it on, he headed down the stairs.

The stone steps had been laid when the fortress was first built, dating back to the medieval period. His steps echoed off the low walls. He had to duck to keep from brushing the ceiling. Reaching the lower level, the stairs ended at an old guardroom with the original iron wall hooks and torch brackets still intact. Heavy beams held up the ceiling.

On the far side, a brick archway opened on a hall of tiny cells where downtrodden nobles and all manner of high criminals had been kept in squalid and miserable conditions. It was here that the Nazis had tortured Ivar’s countrymen, those who resisted the German occupation. Ivar had even lost a granduncle down here. Honoring that sacrifice, Viatus continued to donate large sums to the preservation and upkeep of Akershus.

Ivar swept his flashlight down the throat of the gloomy dungeon passageway. This section was closed to the usual castle tours. Few even knew of its existence… or its darker history. It was here that those who committed high treason to the crown and country were held. The Nazi collaborator Viktor Quisling had been kept locked down here before he was executed. Many others had met their deaths, going back centuries.

Ivar’s fingers closed over an old coin in his coat pocket. He kept it with him at all times. It was a 1725 Frederick IV four-mark, minted by Henrik Christofer Meyer. Meyer had also died down here, whipped and bloodied, for replacing silver with copper in the king’s coinage and pocketing the savings.

King Frederick IV—considered at the time to be a benevolent and merciful leader—still held to a strict code of honor. It was rumored that he had Viking blood in his lineage. And following the Viking code, betrayal of any manner had to be dealt with harshly.

Upon the king’s order, Meyer was not only ordered whipped at the post and sentenced to life imprisonment, he was also marked permanently as a traitor to the crown. Meyers was branded with a hot iron poker in the center of his forehead. The king used one of the mint master’s own substandard coins for the branding, burning the image into the man’s flesh.

The coin in Ivar’s pocket was one of those very coins. It had been in his family for centuries, the story passed from one generation to the next. It grew to represent the Karlsen family code: to balance mercy and generosity, yet never tolerate treachery in any form.

Ivar heard the door above open and slam closed, cutting off his reverie. Footsteps echoed as someone hurried down the steps.

A slim, long-legged woman entered the guardroom. She carried a bit of the winter chill with her. Snow frosted her fiery hair; her gold eyes reflected his flashlight. She wore a long gray coat over dark clothes.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Ivar,” she said. She tossed her hair, scattering snow like some ancient goddess of winter.

Though only in her late twenties, Krista Magnussen had become the chief geneticist for his corporation’s Crop Biogenics division. She had risen quickly, demonstrating both brilliance and a seemingly supernatural resourcefulness. It was only last year that Ivar had learned the true basis of her resourcefulness. The revelation had come at a time when things had begun to go awry with his careful plans. The house of cards he’d been meticulously building had begun to lean. It had needed shoring up.

Krista again proved her value; Ivar had been shocked to discover that she was not entirely who she appeared to be. Corporate espionage was commonplace throughout the industry, but he’d never suspected such a young, brilliant woman. And he never suspected the reach of her connections. She worked for a shadowy network that went by many names. They offered their mercenary services in exchange for access and a percentage of future profits. Over the past year, they had proved to be invaluable at shoring up his plans, even accelerating them.

And it had been Krista herself who dealt with the delicate and unfortunate matter of the senator’s son.

She moved closer, gave Ivar a firm hug, and brushed his cheek in a chaste kiss. Her lips were still cold from the storm.

“I’m also sorry,” she said, “that I had to summon you so suddenly at this hour.”

“If it’s important…”

“It is.” Krista shook her long coat, shivering off snow and melting droplets. “I’ve just heard that our targets in Rome survived.”

“They’re alive? I thought you said they were dead.”

“We underestimated them,” Krista said with a shrug. She made no effort to justify, obfuscate, or avoid responsibility. As always, Ivar respected her candor.

“Do they still possess the artifact?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know all this?” he asked with a frown.

Krista smiled, still coldly. “It seems our attack got someone’s attention, someone with something to prove. After events in Rome, we were contacted. Offered a deal. We now have someone on the inside.”

“Can they be trusted?”

“I don’t leave such matters to mere trust, Ivar. Our organization will be staying close to them, keeping a fire lit under them.”

“I don’t understand. If you have someone on the inside, why not have them secure the artifact or destroy it?”

“That may not be the wisest choice.” Her eyes sparkled in the darkness, shining with a brilliance that dazzled.

“What do you mean?”

“Father Giovanni betrayed you. Took your money, allowed you to finance his research. Yet when he found the artifact, he stole it. Fled with it.”

Ivar’s fingers tightened on the coin. The priest was made to pay for his crime. Shortly after learning of Krista’s connections, Ivar had told her the bloody story of Henrik Meyer, as both a lesson and a warning to her. Instead, she took the story to heart and suggested the mutilations, to help disguise the murders, to make them look more like the work of ecoterrorists. Ivar also found a certain satisfaction in the punishment, a return to an older form of justice, where those who betrayed the world were marked for all to see.

Krista continued. “But with the artifact secure again, now is our chance to hunt for what remains missing. To discover what Giovanni sought.”

Ivar’s attention focused fully back on her. He could not keep the desire out of his voice. “The Doomsday key…”

Such a discovery would not only secure his plan, it could make history. The key had the potential to unlock a mystery stretching back millennia.

Krista explained her plan. “Those who now hold the artifact have proved to be resourceful in the past. With the proper motivation, they might succeed where Father Giovanni failed.”

Ivar reined in his raw desire and maintained his practicality. “And you’re certain you can handle such an undertaking?”

“Not just me.” Krista smiled, this time warm and full of assurance. “As I promised from the beginning, you’ll have the full support of the Guild.”

She crossed to him. “We will not fail you. I will not fail you.”

Moving into his arms, she kissed him again. Not chastely this time, but full on the lips. Her hair brushed his neck, icy and damp, sending chills through him, but her lips, mouth, and tongue burned like liquid fire.

Ivar forgot about the coin in his pocket and reached to the small of her back. He pulled her closer. He recognized that she was seducing him, and he suspected that she knew he wasn’t fooled. But neither of them pulled away.

They both knew what was at risk, what waited to be won.

The future of mankind.

And the power to control that fate.

SECOND

FIRE AND ICE

12
October 12, 10:12 A.M.
Hawkshead, England

It seemed impossible that murder could be traced back to such an idyllic countryside.

Gray drove down the winding road framed by rolling hills. With each passing mile the lane grew narrower until it was barely wide enough to accommodate the rented Land Rover. A patch of hardwood forest overhung the road, creating a tangled tunnel of woven branches. Once clear of the woods, the vistas opened again and revealed the rounded peaks of the surrounding fells, or what passed for mountains here in England. Snow already covered the crags in a white blanket since an early winter storm had blown across the district the night before.

Closer at hand, meadows and hedge-lined farm tracts cut the landscape into a quilt of brown grasses and fallow fields. Streams and creeks sparkled among mirror-smooth lakes and smaller highland tarns. Ice rimed the edges of all the waterways, and windblown snow frosted the entire landscape.

The natural beauty struck one to silence.

Or almost everyone.

“You’re lost, aren’t you?” Kowalski accused from the backseat.

“I’m not lost,” Gray lied.

Rachel rattled her road map and eyed Gray doubtfully.

Okay, maybe they were a little off course…

They had left Liverpool two hours ago and followed the directions easily enough up into the Lake District of northern England. The highways were well marked, but once Gray exited the major thoroughfares, he ended up in a countryside of meandering lanes, unmarked roads, and a broken landscape of hills, forests, and lakes.

Even GPS proved to be no help. None of the roads matched its software. They might as well have been driving through open country.

Their destination was the town of Hawkshead, one of the many honeypot villages that nestled within the natural wonderland of the English Lake District. They were to meet a colleague of Father Giovanni, a historian from the University of Edinburgh named Dr. Wallace Boyle. Boyle had organized the dig out in a remote section of the central fells and still oversaw the site. He had agreed to meet them at a hotel pub in Hawkshead.

But first Gray had to find the place.

Rachel studied the map and searched out the window for any landmarks. Behind Rachel, Seichan sat next to Kowalski and stared sullenly out at the rolling hills and dales. She had barely spoken a word since leaving Italy and continued to hover at the edge of their group, maintaining a wary distance.

“If we don’t get somewhere pretty damn quick,” Kowalski continued, “you’re going to have to stop at the next tree or bush. My back molars are floating.”

Gray sped up the next hill. “If you hadn’t downed those four pints of beer back in Liverpool—”

“Not my fault. All those cockamamie names. Blackwater Brewery’s Buccaneer. Cains Double Bock. Boddington’s Bitters. Tetley’s Cask. Guy can’t tell what he’s getting ‘til he tastes it. Took a while to find a good one.”

“But you drank them all down.”

“Of course I did. It would’ve been rude not to.”

Rachel folded her map and gave up. “It can’t be much farther,” she said with little conviction. “Maybe we should stop and ask for directions.”

Moments later, it proved unnecessary. With a final rattling push, the Land Rover topped the next rise, and a small village appeared, spread across the valley ahead.

Gray looked over at Rachel. The relief on her face answered his question. It had to be Hawkshead. Cobblestone lanes crisscrossed past fenced gardens and squat timbered homes. Snow mantled the village’s slate roofs, and thin trails of smoke rose from the chimneys. Across the way, an old stone church crouched atop a hill and overlooked the village, like a grim gray deacon scowling down at the town below.

As they wound down toward the village, stacked-stone walls rose alongside the road. The Land Rover rumbled over an arched granite bridge to enter the outskirts of town. The buildings and homes were of wattle-and-daub construction with exposed timbers, traditional for an English Tudor town. Small front gardens and window boxes hinted at the splendor that must be spring and summer here, but after the storm last night, snow piled atop boxes and across yards, creating a wintry Christmas scene.

Gray slowed the Land Rover to a crawl as his tires crunched over icy cobbles. He headed toward the main square, where their meeting place—the Kings Arms Hotel—was located. They were already twenty minutes late. Reaching the square, Gray slid the SUV into a small parking lot.

As they exited the vehicle, the cold bit into any exposed skin. The dampness of Liverpool and the long heated drive had not prepared them for the icy chill of the Lakeland elevations. Wood smoke scented each cold breath. Bundling tighter into their thick coats, they set off.

The Kings Arms Hotel lay on the far side of the main square. The squat, slate-roofed building had greeted travelers for five hundred years, stretching back to the Elizabethan era. A low stone wall cordoned off a beer garden in front, its tables and chairs currently covered in a thin coat of fresh snow, but the fiery glow from the inn’s lower windows promised steaming warmth and hot drinks. They hurried toward it.

Kowalski trailed them. “Hey, look it all the bears…” His voice had a wistful note to it, a tone as incongruous as a bull suddenly singing an aria.

Gray glanced back at him. Kowalski’s gaze was fixed on a shop window. Beyond the frosted glass, amber light revealed a display of teddy bears of every size and shape. The sign above the door read Sixpenny Bears.

“There’s one dressed like a boxer!” Kowalski began to detour toward the window.

Gray directed him back. “We’re already late.”

Kowalski’s shoulders slumped. With a final longing glance back at the shop, he continued after them.

Rachel stared at the big man with a bewildered expression.

“What?” Kowalski said grumpily. “It was for Liz, my girlfriend. She… she’s the one who collects bears.”

Rachel stared a moment longer, her expression doubtful.

Kowalski grumbled under his breath and tromped heavily toward the inn.

Seichan stepped next to Gray and touched his elbow. “You go inside. Meet with that historian. I’ll keep watch out here.”

Gray stared over at her. That hadn’t been the plan. Though her face remained calm and disinterested, her eyes continued to roam the square, most likely analyzing the area for sniper roosts, escape routes, and the best places to duck for cover. Or maybe she just refused to meet his eye. Was she truly seeking to guard them or maintaining a cold distance?

“Is something wrong?” he asked, his legs slowing.

“No.” Her eyes flashed toward him, almost angrily. “And I mean to keep it that way.”

Gray didn’t feel like arguing. After all that had happened in Italy, perhaps it would be best to keep a guard outside. He headed after Kowalski and Rachel as Seichan dropped back.

Joining the others, he crossed through the frozen beer garden and reached the front door. He noted a sign near the entryway that read “Good dogs and children welcome.” That probably excluded Kowalski. Gray considered ordering his partner to stay outside with Seichan, but that would only make the woman angrier.

Gray pulled the door open. A heady warmth flowed out, accompanied by the smell of malt and hops. The pub was straight off the hotel lobby. A few voices echoed out to them, along with a booming laugh. Gray followed Kowalski into the pub. His partner aimed straight for the restroom with a quickness to his step.

Gray remained at the entrance and searched the room. The pub of the Kings Arms was small, a scatter of wooden tables and booths built around a stacked-stone fireplace. A roaring fire had been stoked against the cold. Next to the hearth stood a life-sized wooden model of a crowned king, likely the namesake of the hotel.

Another thundering burst of laughter drew Gray’s attention to a corner booth near the fire. A pair of locals, dressed in hunting clothes and knee-high boots, stood before the table and its lone occupant.

“Fell right in the bog, you say, Wallace!” One of the hunters chuckled, wiping at an eye with one hand while hoisting a tall glass of dark ale in the other.

“Arse over kettle! Straight in,” the man in the booth agreed, a Scottish brogue thickening his tongue.

“Wish’un I could’ve seen that, right enough.”

“Ah, but the stench afterward, lads. That you wouldn’ta want to be near. Not at all.” Another hearty laugh followed from the man seated in the booth.

Gray recognized Dr. Wallace Boyle from his picture on the University of Edinburgh website. But the professor in the photo had been clean-shaven and dressed in a formal jacket. The man here had a grizzly dusting of gray beard and was outfitted like his fellow hunters in a frayed herringbone jacket over a quilted waistcoat. On the table rested a moss-green tweed cap, fingerless gloves, and a thick scarf. Next to him, propped upright on the bench seat, was a shotgun zippered into a gunslip.

Dr. Boyle noted Gray’s attention and approach. “Tavish, Duff, looks like those reporters I was setting to meet have arrived.”

That had been their cover story: a pair of international journalists covering the bombing at the Vatican, following up on the death of Father Giovanni. Kowalski acted as their photographer.

The two hunters glanced Gray’s way. Their faces went hard with the usual suspicion of locals for outsiders, but they nodded in wary greeting. With a final heft of their drinks, they left the table.

“Cheers, Wallace,” one said as he departed. “We best be going anyway. It’s already getting to be brass monkeys out there.”

“And it’ll get colder,” Wallace agreed, then waved Gray and Rachel over toward his table.

Kowalski had returned from the restroom, but he never made it past the bar. His eyes were fixed to the chalkboard over the fireplace that listed the local brews. “Copper Dragon’s Golden Pippin? Is that a beer or some sort of fruity drink? I don’t want anything that has fruit in it. Unless you call an olive a fruit…”

Gray tuned out his partner as he headed over to Wallace’s table. The professor stood, unfolding his six-foot-plus frame. Though in his midsixties, the man remained robust and broad-chested, like a younger Sean Connery. He shook their hands, his gaze lingering a little longer on Rachel. The man’s eyes pinched for a moment, then relaxed, hiding whatever had momentarily perplexed him.

Rachel began to slide into the booth first, then suddenly froze. Her side of the bench was occupied. A wiry furred head lifted into view and rested a chin on the wooden table, not far from a half-eaten platter of bangers and mash.

“Rufus, get down from there,” Wallace scolded, but without much heat. “Make room for our guests.”

The black-and-tan terrier huffed through its nose in exasperation, then ducked away and came strolling out from under the table. He moved closer to the fire, circled twice, then collapsed down with an equally loud sigh.

“My hunting dog,” the professor explained. “A mite spoiled, he is. But at his age, he’s earned it. Best fox flusher in the isles. And why shouldn’t he be? Born and bred right here. A true Lakeland Terrier.”

Pride rang in the man’s voice. This was not a professor headed toward early retirement, nor even one resting on his laurels, which were many, according to the man’s bio. Dr. Wallace Boyle was considered to be a leading expert on the history of the British Isles, specifically the Neolithic age through the Roman occupation.

They all settled into the booth. Gray placed a small digital recorder on the table, maintaining their cover as journalists. After a few pleasantries about the weather and their drive, Wallace quickly turned to the matter at hand.

“So, you’ve come all this way to see what we discovered up in the fells,” Wallace said. His brogue grew less heavy, his speech more formal, tailoring it to his audience. “Since the death of Father Giovanni, I’ve been fielding questions and inquiries nonstop for the past two days. Yet no one’s seen fit to come out here in person. Then again, the good father himself hadn’t been out here in months.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

“Father Giovanni left at the end of summer. Headed to the coast, then off to Ireland, last I heard from him.” Wallace shook his head sadly and tapped his glass of beer with a fingernail in some semblance of a toast to the dead. “Marco was a brilliant chap. Truly a great loss. His research and fieldwork on the roots of Celtic Christianity could have changed the way we view history.”

“Why did he come here to begin with?” Gray asked. “To the Lake District.”

“He would’ve ended up here eventually, I suppose. Even if I hadn’t summoned him following my discovery up in the mountains.”

“Why’s that?”

“Marco’s passion—or more like his obsession—had him scouring any and all areas where paganism and Christianity overlapped.” Wallace lifted an arm to encompass the region in general. “And the history of this district is a story of that very conflict written in stones and ruins. It was the Norse who first came to this area, sailing over from Ireland to farm here in the ninth century, bringing all their traditions. Even the word fell comes from the Norse word for ‘hill.’ In fact, the village of Hawkshead was founded by a Norseman named Haukr, whose name still lives on in this place. That should give you some idea of the long history of this region.”

Wallace nodded out the window toward the church that overlooked the town. “But times change. During the twelfth century, the entire area came under the ownership of the monks of Furness Abbey, the ruins of which can be found not far from here. The monks cultivated the region, traded in wool and sheep, and ruled the superstitious villagers with an iron fist. Tensions dragged on for centuries between the ancient pagan ways and the new religion. The old rituals continued to be performed in secret, often at the prehistoric sites that litter the countryside.”

“What do you mean by prehistoric sites?” Rachel asked.

“Places dating back to the Neolithic period. Five thousand years ago.” Wallace ticked them off on his fingers. “Ancient stone circles, henges, barrows, dolmens, hill forts. While Stonehenge might be the most famous, it’s only one among several hundred such sites spread across the British Isles.”

“But what interested Father Giovanni about your specific excavation?” Gray asked, seeking to draw the professor closer to the core of their investigation.

Wallace cocked one brow. “Ah, well, that you will have to see for yourself. But I can tell you what led me to this region.”

“And what was that?”

“A single entry in an old book. An eleventh-century text nicknamed the Doomsday Book.”

Kowalski stepped to their table. He carried a tall glass of pilsner in each hand, drinking from both. He paused in midsip upon hearing Wallace’s words. “Doomsday,” he said. “Great. Like we don’t have enough problems already.”

11:05 A.M.

Seichan walked the full length of the square. In her mind, a map formed of the local area. Every detail, brick by brick, every street, alley, building, and parked car. All became fixed in her head.

She noted two men dressed in hunting gear as they left the pub. She stalked them as they ambled over to a truck in the parking lot. She made sure they drove away.

Afterward, she found a good vantage point from which to observe the Kings Arms Hotel. It was the doorway of a closed gift shop. The alcove allowed her to shelter against the occasional stiff gust and to keep out of direct sight. On her right, the shop’s window displayed a pastel-colored diorama of small ceramic animals dressed in little outfits: pigs, cows, ducks, and, of course, tiny bunnies… lots and lots of bunnies. The Lake District was the home of Beatrix Potter and her creation Peter Rabbit.

Despite her need to watch the hotel, Seichan’s attention drifted to the shop window. She remembered very little about her childhood, and what she did remember she wished she could forget. She had never known her parents and was raised in an orphanage outside of Seoul, South Korea. It had been a squalid place with few comforts. But there had been a few books, including Beatrix Potter’s, brought years ago by a Catholic missionary. Those books and others were her true childhood, a place to escape the hunger, abuse, and neglect. As a young girl, she had even made a toy bunny out of a scrap of burlap stuffed with dry rice. To keep it from being stolen, she had kept it hidden behind a loose board in the wall, but eventually a rat found it and ate out the stuffing. She had cried for a solid day, until one of the matrons beat her, reminding her that even sorrow was a luxury.

In the doorway, Seichan turned her back to the window display, shutting out those memories. Still, it wasn’t just the past that pained her. Through the window, she watched Gray converse with an older man in tweed garb. It had to be Dr. Wallace Boyle. Seichan studied Gray. His black hair was longer, lankier across his forehead. His face had also grown harder, making his cheekbones stand out. Even his ice-blue eyes had a few more crinkles at the edges—not from laughter, but from the passing of a hard couple of years.

Standing in the cold, dusted with snow, Seichan remembered his lips. In a single moment of weakness, she had kissed him. There had been no tenderness behind it, only desperation and need. Still, she had not forgotten the heat, the roughness of his stubble, the hardness of his hold on her. Yet in the end it had been meaningless to both of them.

The hand in her coat pocket touched the scar on her belly.

They had just been dancing a game of betrayal.

Like now.

A vibration in her pocket alerted her to a call.

Finally.

It was the real reason she had stayed out in the cold. She removed the phone and flipped it open.

“Speak,” she said.

“Do they still have the package?” The voice on the phone was calm and assured but crisp at the edges, with an American accent. It was her sole point of contact, a woman named Krista Magnussen.

Seichan bridled at having to take orders from anyone, but she had no choice. She had to prove herself. “Yes. The artifact is secure. They’re meeting with the contact right now.”

“Very good. We’ll make our move once they’re at the excavation site in the mountains. The team set the charges in place last night. The fresh snowfall should cover up any evidence.”

“And the objective?”

“Remains the same. To light a fire under them. In this case, literally. The archaeological site is now more of a liability than an asset. But its destruction must appear natural.”

“And you have that covered.”

“We do. Leaving you free to focus fully on your objective.”

Seichan read the threat behind the words. There would be no excuse for failure. Not if she wanted to live.

As she listened to the mission specifics, she continued to watch the hotel window. Not focusing on Gray any longer, she stared at the Italian woman seated beside him. Rachel smiled at something the professor said, her eyes sparking warmly even across the cold distance.

Seichan held nothing against Rachel Verona—but that would not stop her from poisoning the woman.

11:11 A.M.

Rachel listened as the conversation continued. While the professor’s history lesson was intriguing, she sensed something deeper going on here—in regard to the story of Father Giovanni and something else, something yet unspoken. The man’s gaze kept lingering on her, not lasciviously, but more like he was sizing her up. She had a hard time maintaining eye contact with him.

What was going on?

“I still don’t understand,” Gray said beside her. “What does this Doomsday Book have to do with your discovery up in the mountains?”

Wallace held up a hand, asking for patience. “First of all, the book’s true name wasn’t Doomsday, but rather Domesday. After the old English root dom, which meant ‘reckoning’ or ‘accounting.’ The book was commissioned by King William as a means to assess the value of his newly conquered lands, a way to assign tax and tithing. It mapped out all of England, down to every town, village, and manor house, and took a census of the local resources, from the number of animals and plows in the fields to the number of fish in its lakes and streams. To this day, the book remains one of the best glimpses of life during that time.”

“That’s all fine,” Gray pressed, plainly wanting to hurry him along. “But you mentioned that a single entry led to your current excavation. What were you talking about?”

“Ah, now there’s the rub! You see, the Domesday Book was written in a cryptic form of Latin, compiled by a single scribe. There remains some mystery as to why this level of security was necessary. Some historians have wondered if there might not have been a secondary purpose to this great compilation, some secret accounting. Especially as a few of the places listed in the book are ominously marked with a single word in Latin that meant ‘wasted.’ Most of those locations are concentrated in the northwest region of England, where the borders were constantly changing.”

“By the northwest,” Rachel asked, “you mean like here, the Lake District?”

“Exactly. The county of Cumbria was rife with border wars. And many of the spots listed as wasted were sites where the king’s army had destroyed a town or village. They were noted because you couldn’t tax what no longer existed.”

“Really?” Kowalski asked, scowling at his two glasses of ale. “Then you never heard of the death tax?”

Wallace glanced from Kowalski to Gray.

“Just ignore him,” Gray recommended.

Wallace cleared his throat. “Closer study of the Domesday Book revealed a bit of a mystery. Not all of the wasted sites were the result of conquest. A scattering of references had no explanation. These few were marked in red ink, as though someone had been tracking something significant. I sought some explanation and spent close to ten years on one of those entries, a reference to a small village up in the highland fells that no longer exists. I searched for records to this place, but it was as if they’d been expunged. I almost gave up until I found an odd mention in the diary of a royal coroner named Martin Borr. I found his book up at Saint Michael’s.”

He waved toward the hilltop church at the edge of town. “The book was discovered in a bricked-off cellar during a renovation. Borr was buried up in the cemetery at Saint Michael’s, his possessions given over to the church. While his journals wouldn’t say exactly what had happened to that village, the man did hint at something horrible, suggesting that doomsday might indeed be a more accurate name for that book. He even marked his diary with a pagan symbol, which is what drew me to the tome to begin with.”

“A pagan symbol?” Rachel’s hand strayed toward her coat pocket, where she kept the leather satchel with its macabre contents.

Gray placed his palm over her fingers and squeezed gently, his intent plain. Until he knew more about this man, he didn’t want Rachel showing him what she’d found. Rachel swallowed, too aware of the heat of Gray’s palm on her skin. She slipped her hand away and placed it on top of the table.

Wallace failed to notice their quiet communication. “The symbol was definitely pagan. Here, let me show you.” He dipped a finger in his glass of ale and drew on the wooden table, with a few deft strokes, a circle and a cross. A familiar symbol.

“A quartered circle,” Gray said.

Wallace’s brows rose, and he stared a bit harder at Gray. “Exactly. You’ll find this symbol carved into many ancient sites. But to find a Christian diary marked with it caught my attention.”

Rachel sensed they were drawing near to the heart of the mystery. “And this diary helped you to find that lost village up in the mountains?”

“Actually, no.” Wallace smiled. “What I found was even more exciting.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Wallace sat back, folded his arms, and swept his gaze over the lot of them. “Before I answer that, how about you telling me first what’s really going on? Like what you’re all doing here?”

“I don’t understand,” Gray said, feigning confusion, attempting to maintain their cover story as journalists.

“Don’t take me for a fool. If you’re reporters, I’m a steamin’ bampot.” Wallace’s gaze settled fully on Rachel. “Besides, right off, I recognized you, my young lassie. You’re Monsignor Verona’s niece.”

Shocked, Rachel stared over at Gray. He looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. Kowalski merely rolled his eyes, picked up his glass, and downed the remaining contents in one gulp.

Rachel saw no reason to continue the subterfuge. She faced the professor. She now understood why the man had been staring at her so oddly. “You know my uncle?”

“Aye. Not well, but I do. And I’m sorry to hear he’s still in a coma. We met at a symposium years ago and began an ongoing correspondence. Your uncle was very proud of you—a carabiniere in charge of antiquities theft. He sent photos, and at my age, I don’t forget a pretty young face like yours.”

Rachel shared a glance with Gray, looking apologetic. She hadn’t known of this personal connection.

Wallace continued. “I don’t understand the reason for this bit of subterfuge, but before we go any further, I want some explanation.”

Before anyone could speak, the professor’s terrier began a low growl at the back of its throat. The dog climbed to its legs beside the fire and stared toward the entryway of the hotel. As the door swung open, the growl deepened.

A figure stepped into the hotel, knocking snow from her boots.

It was only Seichan.

13
October 12, 1:36 P.M.
Oslo, Norway

The luncheon ended with a warning.

“Mankind can no longer wait to respond to this crisis,” Ivar Karlsen said, standing at a podium at the far end of the dining hall. “A global collapse faces this generation or the next.”

Painter shared the table at the back of the hall with Monk and John Creed. They had arrived in Oslo only an hour ago and barely made it to the opening luncheon of the World Food Summit.

The dining room of Akershus Castle was straight out of a medieval storybook. Hand-hewn wooden beams held up the ceiling, while underfoot, an oak floor was laid out in a herringbone pattern. Overhead, chandeliers sparkled down upon long tables draped in linens.

The meal had included five courses, an irony for a summit that had gathered to discuss world hunger. The lunch had been a study in Norwegian cuisine, including medallions of reindeer in a mushroom sauce and a pungent dish of lutefisk, a Norwegian whitefish specialty. Monk was still dragging his spoon around his dessert bowl, chasing the last cloudberry out of the whipped cream. Creed merely cradled a cup of coffee in his hands and listened to the keynote speaker attentively.

With the speaker’s podium at the far end of the hall, Painter had a hard time getting much of a read on Ivar Karlsen, but even across the distance, the man’s passion and earnestness were plain.

“World governments will be too slow to respond,” Ivar continued. “Only the private sector has the fluidity to act with the necessary speed and innovation to turn aside this crisis.”

Painter had to admit that the scenario presented by Karlsen was frightening. All the models he presented ended the same way. When unchecked population growth hit the point of stagnating food supply, the resulting chaos would kill over 90 percent of the world population. There seemed only one solution, a final solution not unlike Hitler’s.

“Population control must be started immediately. The time to act is now, or even better, yesterday. The only way to avoid this catastrophe is to slow the rate of population growth, to apply the brakes before we hit the wall. Yet do not be fooled. We will hit the wall. It is inevitable. The only question is do we kill all the passengers or do we walk away with only a few scratches. For the sake of humanity, for the sake of our future, we must act now.”

With those final words, Karlsen lifted a hand to a smattering of applause. It was far from enthusiastic. For the opening to the summit, it certainly cast a pall of gloom.

One of the men seated at the front table stood and took the microphone next. Painter recognized the dour-faced South African economist. Dr. Reynard Boutha, copresident of the Club of Rome. Though Boutha nodded to Karlsen as he assumed the podium, Painter read the tension and irritation in the copresident’s expression. He was not happy with the tone of the keynote.

Painter barely heard Boutha’s words. They were mostly conciliatory, more optimistic, an acknowledgment of the great strides already made in feeding the world’s hungry. Painter kept his focus on Karlsen. The man’s face was passive, but he gripped his water glass tightly, and deliberately kept his eyes away from Boutha, refusing to acknowledge the other’s message of hope.

Monk came up with the same evaluation. “Guy looks like he’s ready to punch his fist through something.”

The concluding farewell by Boutha ended the luncheon. Painter immediately shot to his feet. He turned to Monk and Creed. “Head back to the hotel. I’m going to have a few words with Karlsen, then meet you there.”

John Creed stood. “I thought our appointment wasn’t until tomorrow morning.”

“It’s not,” Painter said. “But it never hurts to say hello.”

He pushed against the tide of people leaving the luncheon. A small clutch of admirers surrounded Karlsen, congratulating, questioning, shaking his hand. Painter edged nearer. Off to the side, he overheard Boutha speaking to a hawk-nosed man in a poorly fitting suit.

“Antonio, I thought you warned Mr. Karlsen against such an inflammatory speech.”

“I did,” the other answered, his face red and blotchy. “Does he ever listen? But at least he toned down the worst of it. His original keynote called for mandatory birth control in third world countries. Can you imagine how that would’ve been received?”

Boutha sighed and headed away with the other man. “At least he’ll be away from the conference starting tomorrow.”

“Small blessing there. He’ll be in Svalbard with some of our biggest donors and sponsors. I can only imagine what he’ll say when he has them alone. Perhaps if I went along, too…”

“You know the scheduled flights are full, Antonio. Besides, I’ll be along on that trip to put out any fires.”

They passed Painter without a glance, leaving the way open to Karlsen. Painter stepped forward and took the CEO’s arm in a double-handed shake, one hand on his palm, the other on his wrist.

“Mr. Karlsen, I thought I should take a moment to introduce myself. I’m Captain Neal Wright from the U.S Office of the Inspector General.”

The man extracted his hand, but his warm smile never faltered. “Ah, the investigator from the Department of Defense. Let me assure you that you’ll have my full cooperation concerning the tragedy in Mali.”

“Of course. And I know our interview isn’t scheduled until tomorrow. But I just wanted to say I found your talk fascinating.” Painter played off what he had just heard. “Though I wonder if you were perhaps pulling your punches.”

“How so?” The casual interest in his face sharpened.

“It seems drastic methods will be necessary to curb population growth. I had hoped you would have gone into more specific details rather than mere generalities.”

“You may be right, but it’s a controversial subject, one best handled delicately. Too often, people blur the line between population control and eugenics.”

“As in who are allowed to breed children and who are not?”

“Precisely. It’s not a subject for those bound by political expediency or popular opinion. That’s why governments of the world will never solve this problem. It’s a matter of will and timing.” Karlsen checked his watch. “And speaking of the latter, I’m unfortunately running late for another appointment. But I’d be happy to chat more about this when we meet tomorrow at my office.”

“Very good. And thank you again for the illuminating talk.”

The man nodded as he stepped away, his mind already shifting to the next task at hand.

Painter watched him leave. As Karlsen neared the hall entrance, Painter palmed the cell phone in his pocket and pressed the button on its side. A narrow radio frequency burst from the phone and activated the polysynthetic receiver implanted inside his ear.

A chatter of voices, along with the clink of dishes being cleared from the tables, immediately burst in his ear. The sounds were amplified from the bug he had just planted inside the jacket sleeve of Ivar Karlsen as they shook hands. The electronic surveillance device was no larger than a grain of rice. It had been DARPA engineered, based on one of Painter’s own designs. He might be director of Sigma now, but he’d started as a field operative. His specialty was microengineering and surveillance.

Painter watched Karlsen come to a sudden stop outside the banquet hall. He clasped hands with a silver-haired man who matched him in height. Painter recognized Senator Gorman. Straining to listen in on their conversation, Painter weeded out the background noise and concentrated on Karlsen’s voice.

“—you, Senator. Were you able to catch the keynote?”

“Just the end of it. But I’m well aware of your views. How was it received?”

Karlsen shrugged. “Fell on deaf ears, I’m afraid.”

“That will change.”

“Unfortunately true,” Karlsen said a little sadly. He then clapped Senator Gorman on the shoulder. “By the way, I should let you know I just met that investigator from D.C. He strikes me as a very capable fellow.”

Painter allowed a slight smile to form. Nothing like making a good first impression…

The senator’s gaze swept the ballroom. Painter kept his face turned away and slipped smoothly among a clutch of people. The senator’s security clearance was not high enough to know anything about Sigma. As far as the senator knew, Painter was merely a DoD investigator. Still, he preferred anonymity. General Metcalf had warned against ruffling the man’s feathers. The senator had a quick temper and little patience, which he amply demonstrated now.

“It’s a stupid waste of resources to send someone all the way here,” Gorman complained. “The investigation should be concentrating its resources in Mali.”

“I’m sure they’re just being thorough. It’s not an inconvenience.”

“You’re too generous.”

With those words, the two men left together.

Painter kept the microreceiver live in his ear and strode toward the exit. He continued to eavesdrop on the conversation.

It was good to have the upper hand, for once.

In a room off the banquet hall, Krista Magnussen sat before an open laptop. She studied the image of the man frozen on the screen with mild interest. He was strikingly handsome with his whip-hard body, black hair, and flashing blue eyes. During the luncheon, she had observed everyone who made contact with Ivar Karlsen. A small wireless camera was situated in a corner of the room, focused on the front of the hall. There had been no audio, but the surveillance allowed her to run each image through face-recognition software and cross-reference it against a Guild database.

As she waited, the man’s face digitized into a hundred reference points and uploaded. Moments later, the screen flashed in red with a single word, along with an operative code beneath it.

The word made her go cold.

Sigma.

The operative code she knew equally well. Terminate upon sight.

Krista returned the camera feed to live. She leaned close to the monitor. The man was gone.

Antonio Gravel was having a bad day.

Standing out in the hallway, he had meant to waylay Ivar Karlsen after the luncheon, to try one last time to convince the bastard to let him join the trip to Svalbard. He was even willing to offer some concession, to ingratiate himself if necessary. Instead, Ivar had run into the U.S. senator. Antonio waited in the wings to be introduced, but as usual, the bastard deliberately ignored him. The two men departed, deep in conversation.

Antonio could barely breathe after the insult. Anger grew to a blinding white fury. He swung away savagely and smacked squarely into a woman hurrying out a side door. She was dressed in a long fur coat, her hair done up in a scarf. He struck her so hard that a large pair of Versace sunglasses slipped from her face. She deftly caught them and perched them back on her nose.

“Entschuldigen Sie bitte,” Antonio apologized. He’d been so startled and mortified that he slipped into his native Swiss German—especially as a confounding flicker of recognition fluttered through him.

Who…?

Ignoring him, she shoved past, glanced into the banquet room—then rushed down the hallway with a flare of her ankle-length coat. She was plainly late for some engagement.

He watched her disappear down the closest stairwell. Irritated, he shook his head and started to leave the other way.

Then he suddenly remembered.

He jolted and swung back around.

Impossible.

He had to be mistaken. He had only met the geneticist once, at an organizational meeting regarding the Viatus research project in Africa. He didn’t recall her name, but he was certain it was the same woman. He had spent most of that dull meeting staring at her and undressing her with his eyes, imagining what it would be like to force himself on her.

It had to be her.

But she was supposed to be dead, a victim of the Mali massacre. There had been no survivors.

Antonio continued to stare toward the stairwell. What was she doing here, alive and unharmed? And why was she keeping herself hidden, her features under wraps?

Antonio’s eyes narrowed as a slow realization warmed through him. Something was up, something no one was supposed to know about, something tied to Viatus. For years, he’d been seeking some dirt on Ivar, a way to rein the bastard to his will.

At long last, here might be his chance.

But how to best turn it to his advantage?

Antonio swung away, already plotting his game. He knew which card to play first. A man who’d lost a son during that massacre. Senator Gorman. What would the U.S. senator think if he learned there had been a survivor of the attack, someone Ivar was keeping secret?

With a grim smile, he headed off.

The day had suddenly gotten much brighter.

3:15 P.M.

Painter headed under the brick archway that passed through the fortress wall of Akershus. Even though it was only a little after three in the afternoon, the sun was already low in the sky at this near-Arctic latitude. Beyond the archway, the fjord’s harbor opened. Snow still frosted the verdigris-stained cannons that lined the walkway and pointed out to sea, ready to protect the town against warships. Though at the moment, there was only a Cunard cruise ship parked dockside.

As seagulls swooped and screamed through the diesel-fouled air, Painter continued along the cruise ship’s towering bulk and aimed for the city proper. Over the past hour, he’d kept tabs on Ivar Karlsen, eavesdropping on his conversations. With the bug, he’d had a good chance to discover more details about the CEO, insights that might prove invaluable for tomorrow’s interview.

The conversations had mostly been of mundane matters, but still, it was clear the man was deeply committed to facing issues of hunger and overpopulation. Karlsen was all about real-world solutions and practicality. It was plainly the man’s mission in life.

Painter also caught an intriguing bit of conversation about the drought-resistant corn strains being developed by Viatus, a version of which had been tested at the Mali research farm. As of last week, mass seed shipments were already under way to places around the world, triggering a spike in stock prices for Viatus. And still Ivar was not satisfied. He promised that his company’s Crop Biogenics division was continuing to craft new strains with desirable features: insect-resistant wheat, frost-tolerant citrus, weed-killing soybeans. The list went on and on, including a rape-seed strain that could produce oil essential to the manufacture of biodegradable plastic.

But the conversation had ended on a darker note. Karlsen had brought up a quote from Henry Kissinger. It had been in response to a question about his company’s shift in focus from petrochemicals to engineered seeds. He had said, paraphrasing Kissinger, “Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world.”

Did Karlsen truly believe that?

A few minutes after that, the man had climbed into a corporate limo and left for his research complex outside of Oslo. The hidden microtransceiver had a limited range, so Painter had to abandon his spying for now. And just as well. Karlsen’s talk about the Crops Biogenics division had lit a fire under Painter. He barely felt the cold as he crossed into the shadow of the towering cruise ship and navigated through the passengers hovering at the gangplank.

He had to prepare for another facet of the investigation, one that would require a bit more stealth this evening.

As he moved through the passengers, a burly figure in a parka bumped against him. Spotting the impact a fraction of a second before, Painter instinctively moved to sidestep him. A fiery lance of pain stabbed into his side.

He spun away from it, catching a flash of silver off a knife held low in the man’s grip. If he hadn’t dodged at the last moment, the blade would’ve struck him square in the stomach. He couldn’t count twice on such a lucky break. The man came at him again.

So far, no one else had noted the attack.

Painter snatched a camera from around one of the oblivious tourists’ necks. Gripping the shoulder strap, he swung the heavy Nikon SLR and struck the attacker square in the ear. As the man fell to the side, Painter leaped in closer, snagged the leather strap around the man’s wrist, and used the grip to wrench his struggling form over his hip and hard to the pavement.

The man’s face struck the cement. A bone snapped in his trapped arm. The knife tumbled across the ground.

As yells erupted all around, Painter vaulted over the prone body, going after the loose weapon. Before he could reach it, the knife suddenly jolted, emitting a sharp hissing, and skittered like a loose rocket across the icy ground. Painter hesitated, recognizing the lethal weapon.

A WASP injector knife.

The dagger’s handle held a bulb of compressed gas, making the blade doubly dangerous. Once stabbed into a victim, the press of a button blasted a basketball-sized volume of cold air through the impaled blade and into the victim’s gut, snap-freezing and pulverizing all internal organs. It could kill a brown bear with one jab.

Propelled by the blast of gas, the knife rocketed into the tangle of boots and legs. The waterfront had erupted in chaos. Some people fled from the fight; others crowded closer. Someone shouted, “That guy stole my camera!”

A slew of ship security personnel pounded down the gangway. More forced their way through the crowd.

Painter clutched a hand to his side and dove into the chaos of the churning crowd. The heavy coat and last-minute dodge had saved his life. Still, hot blood welled through his fingers. Fire flamed his side. He could not get caught. Still, it wasn’t only security he had to worry about. As he ran, he kept watch on the crowd around him.

Had the attacker come alone?

Not likely.

As Painter stumbled through the passengers and tourists, he searched faces around him and watched hands. How many others were disguised like the first one, planted in the crowd and guarding this exit out of Akershus?

He knew one thing for certain. This had been no random mugging. Not with the attacker wielding a WASP injector. Somehow his cover had been blown. A net had been set up around the fortress grounds.

He had to get clear of the docks, put some distance between himself and the ambush. The crowds grew less tight around him as he hopped into the parklands that bordered the dock. Icy snow covered the ground and crunched under his boots. Bright red drops splattered into the snow. He was leaving an easy trail to follow.

Fifty yards away, another man in a parka hopped the border fence and came tromping toward him. So much for the subtle approach now. Not knowing if the man had a gun, Painter turned and fled for the patch of pine trees that filled the back half of the park. He had to get under cover.

The assassin followed the fresh trail of prints in the snow. He ran in a low crouch, his blade clutched in his left hand. He hit the tree line and kept one eye on the trail and the other on his surroundings. Under the trees the way became shadowy but not so dim that he lost sight of the trail. No one had been through here since the last snowfall. Only one set of prints marred the virgin snow.

Along with a dribbling track of blood.

The path zigzagged through the trees. Clearly the target feared a gun and took up a defensive pattern. It was a waste of effort. The assassin cut a straight path through the forest, paralleling the crooked flight.

Ahead, the glade opened. The trail of prints fled straight across. His prey had abandoned caution and was trying to reach the city streets beyond the park. Tightening his grip on the knife, he raced to close the distance.

As he reached the glade’s edge, a low branch of a neighboring pine whipped around. It struck him across the shins with the force of a battering ram. His legs were knocked from under him. He flipped face-forward into the snow. Before he could move, a heavy weight landed on his back and crushed the remaining air out of him.

He realized his mistake. The man had backtracked, hidden behind the pine, and ambushed him, hauling back the branch that had cracked across his shins.

It was his last mistake.

A hand shot down and gripped his chin. The other pinned his neck to the ground. A sharp yank. His neck snapped. Pain flared as if the top of his skull had blown away—then darkness.

5:34 P.M.

“Hold still,” Monk scolded. “I only have one more suture.”

Painter sat on the edge of the tub in his boxers. He felt the needle pierce his flesh. The spray anesthetic only dulled the sharpest edge of the pain. At least Monk worked swiftly. He’d already debrided and cleaned the wound, shot him full of prophylactic antibiotics, and with a final deft twist of his needle forceps, he closed the four-inch laceration under the left side of Painter’s rib cage.

Monk dropped everything into a sterile Surgipack on the bathroom floor, picked up a roll of gauze and adhesive tape, and set about wrapping Painter’s chest.

“What now?” Monk asked. “Do we stick to our schedule?”

After the attack, Painter had fled into the city, taking an extra few minutes to make sure he wasn’t followed. Then he’d called Monk. As a precaution, he ordered them to change hotels and rebook under another alias. Painter joined them there.

“I see no reason to change,” Painter said.

Monk nodded toward the wound. “I see about four inches of reason.”

Painter shook his head. “They were sloppy. Whoever set up the attack must have done so hastily. Somehow I was made, but I don’t think we’re more exposed than that.”

“Still, that’s pretty damn exposed.”

“It just means extra precautions will be necessary from here. I’ll have to avoid the summit. Keep out of sight. That means leaning more heavily on you and Creed.”

“So we’re still going to recon that research facility tonight?”

Painter nodded. “I’ll monitor via radio. Nothing fancy. Slip in, tap into the servers, and get the hell out of there.”

It was a simple operation. Courtesy of Kat Bryant’s sources, they had identification cards, electronic keys, and a full schematic of the Viatus facility. They would go in after midnight when the place was mostly deserted.

John Creed hurried into the bathroom. He wore a lab coat with the Viatus logo on the pocket. He must have been trying on his disguise. “Sir, your phone. It’s buzzing.”

Painter held out a hand and took the cell. He read the Caller ID and frowned. It was General Metcalf’s number. Why was he calling? Painter had avoided briefing Washington on what had happened until he knew more. To have the operation closed down before it even started would not sit well with anyone.

Especially Painter.

He flipped the phone open and answered. “General Metcalf?”

“Director Crowe. I suspect you’re still settling in over there, so I’ll be brief. I just received a call from Senator Gorman. He was very agitated.”

Painter struggled to understand. He’d done nothing to provoke the senator.

“Gorman received a cryptic call half an hour ago. Someone claiming to have information on the attack in Africa. The caller said he knew of a survivor to the attack.”

“A survivor?” Painter could not hide his own surprise.

“The caller wants to meet at the bar of the senator’s hotel. To give further details. He’ll only meet with Gorman alone.”

“I don’t think that’s wise.”

“Neither do we. That’s why you’re going to be at that bar. The senator knows that a DoD investigator is already in Oslo. He personally requested you be there. You’re to maintain a low profile, to intervene only if necessary.”

“When’s the meet?” Painter asked.

“Tonight at midnight.”

Of course, it would be.

Painter finished the call and tossed the phone back to Creed.

“What?” Monk asked.

Painter explained, which only deepened Monk’s frown.

Creed spoke a fear they all shared. “It might be a trap. Meant to draw you out into the open again.”

“We should call off the operation at Viatus,” Monk suggested. “Go with you as backup.”

Painter considered that option. Monk had been out of the field for some time, and Creed had barely gotten his feet wet. It would be risky to send them over to the research facility by themselves. Painter studied Monk, weighing the variables.

Monk guessed the intent of his attention. “We can still do this, sir, if that’s what you’re thinking. The kid might be green, but we’ll get it done.”

Painter heard the certainty in the man’s voice. With a sigh, he stopped overanalyzing the situation. He wasn’t at his desk in Washington anymore. This was fieldwork. He had to trust his gut. And his gut was telling him that events were rapidly escalating out of control.

Delay was not an option.

“We stick to the schedule,” he said forcefully, brooking no argument. “We need access to that server. From today’s attack, it’s clear someone is getting both bolder and more agitated. A bad combination. We can’t let them lock us out. So we’ll just have to split up tonight.”

Creed looked concerned, but not for himself. “Sir, what if you’re attacked again?”

“Don’t worry. They had their one free shot at me.” Painter reached the sink and picked up the WASP dagger that he’d confiscated from the assassin in the park. “Tonight, I’ll be the one doing the hunting.”

6:01 P.M.

Bundled in a fox-fur—lined coat and hood, Krista strode down the central path of Frogner Park in the west-end borough of Oslo. She had an apartment that overlooked the snowy park, but she could not stand to wait indoors any longer. She carried her phone with her.

The sun had set, and the temperature had plummeted.

She had the park to herself.

She continued along the path through the sculpture garden. Her warm breath frosted the air. She needed to keep moving, but tension kept her stiff.

Spread around her were more than two hundred sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland, a Norwegian national treasure. Most of the sculptures involved nude stone figures frozen in various combinations and twisted poses. Presently the sculptures were covered with snow, as if wrapped in tattered white cloaks.

Ahead rose the towering central sculpture. It sat on the highest point of the park and was lit up for the night. It was named the Monolith. It always reminded Krista of something out of Dante’s Inferno, especially at night. Maybe that’s why she was drawn to it now.

The sculpture was a circular tower four stories high carved out of a single block of granite. Its entire surface was a writhing mass of human figures, tangled, twisted, entwined, a dark orgy in stone. It was supposed to represent the eternal cycle of mankind, but to her, it looked like a mass grave.

She stared up at it, knowing what was coming.

What we are about to unleash…

She shuddered inside her coat and clasped her fur-lined hood tighter to her throat. It was not remorse that kept her trembling, but the sheer enormity of what was unfolding. It was already under way, had been for over a decade, but in the next days, there would be no turning back. The world was about to change, and she had played a primary role in it all.

But she had not acted alone.

Her phone, still clutched in her pocket, vibrated. She took a deep breath and exhaled a stream of white mist. She had failed today. What would be her punishment? Her eyes scanned the dark parklands around her. Were they already closing in on her? Death did not frighten her. What terrified her was being taken out of the game now, at this last moment. In her haste and desire, she had acted rashly. She should have contacted her superiors before attempting to take down the Sigma operative on her own.

She lifted the phone and tucked it into her hood.

“Yes?” she answered.

Alone in the park, she did not have to worry about anyone eavesdropping. The satellite phone was also encrypted. She readied herself for whatever would come.

Still, she was not prepared for the voice on the line. All warmth drained out of her. She might as well have been naked in the cold park.

“He lives,” the voice said flatly. “You should have known better.”

With her breath trapped in her chest, she could not speak. She had only heard this voice once before in her life. It had been after her recruitment, after a brutal initiation, when she’d carried out an assassination, killing an entire family, including a newborn baby. The Venezuelan politician had been supporting an investigation into a French pharmaceutical company, an investigation that needed to be stopped. She had also taken a bullet through her leg from the man’s security team, but she still escaped without leaving a trace behind. Not even a drop of her own blood.

During her recovery, she had received a call, congratulating her.

From the man on the phone now.

It was said he was one of the Guild leaders, those who were only referred to as “Echelon.”

She finally found her voice. “Sir, I take full responsibility for the failure.”

“And I imagine you’ve learned from this mistake.” The tone remained flat. She could not tell if the speaker was angry or not.

“Yes, sir.”

“From here, leave the matter to us. Steps are being taken. But a new threat has arisen, more immediate than Sigma sniffing at our door. Something you’d best handle on the ground there.”

“Sir?”

“Someone knows there was a survivor of the Mali massacre. They are meeting with Senator Gorman tonight.”

Krista’s fingers tightened on her phone. How could that be? She’d been so careful. Her mind raced through the last few days. She’d kept herself well hidden. Anger warmed through her terror.

“That meeting must not happen,” the speaker warned and told her the details of the midnight rendezvous.

“And the senator?”

“Expendable. If word reaches him before you can shut this down, take him out. No evidence must be left behind.”

She knew it wasn’t necessary to acknowledge that.

“As to the operation in England,” the man continued, “all is in place there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know how important it is that we find the key to the Doomsday Book.”

She did. She stared up at the Monolith’s writhing tower of bodies. The key could either save them or damn them.

“Do you trust your contact over there?” he asked.

“Of course not. Trust is never necessary. Only power and control.”

For once, a hint of amusement tinged his words. “You were taught well.” The phone connection ended. But not before a last few cryptic words. “Echelon has its eyes on you.”

Krista remained standing before the Monolith. With the phone still at her ear, she shuddered again—with relief, with terror, but mostly with one certainty.

She must not fail.

14
October 12, 4:16 P.M.
Lake District, England

Gray eyed his transportation doubtfully.

His transportation stared back at him, equally unsure, stamping a hoof for emphasis.

“The Fell Pony,” Dr. Wallace Boyle said as he worked among the assembled horseflesh. “You’ll not find a heartier pony on God’s green earth. Perfect for mountain trekking. Sure-footed and strong as an ox.”

“You call these guys ponies?” Kowalski asked.

Gray understood his partner’s consternation. The dusty-black stallion being saddled for Gray had to stand over fourteen hands, almost five feet tall at the withers. It chuffed into the cold air and scraped a hoof into the half-frozen mud.

“Ack, be still already, Pip,” a ranch hand said as he gave the saddle cinch another tug.

The group had left Hawkshead by car an hour ago. Wallace had guided them to this horse farm deep in the mountains. Apparently the only way to reach the excavation site from here was either on foot or by horseback. Wallace had called ahead and arranged for their four-legged transportation.

“The Fell Pony has a long tradition in the region,” he continued as their mounts were tacked. “The wild Picts used them against the Romans. Viking farmers used them as plow horses. And the Normans who came later made pack animals out of them to haul lead and coal.”

Wallace rubbed the neck of his brown gelding and climbed up into his saddle. His terrier, Rufus, trotted through the assembled horses and lifted his leg on a fence post. The dog’s initial distrust of Seichan seemed to have settled into a wary truce. He gave her a wide berth as she slipped a toe through a stirrup and leaped smoothly atop a sturdy-looking bay mare.

“‘Fraid you’re going to have to excuse ol’ Rufus,” Wallace had explained back at the pub. “Set in his ways, he is. And I’m embarrassed to say he’s a bit of a bigot. Took a bite out of a Pakistani grad student last spring.”

Rachel had looked aghast.

Seichan had not reacted at all. She merely stared at the dog until its tail sank, and it retreated into its master’s shadow. Afterward she joined them at the table.

Rachel, having been recognized, had come clean about their true intentions with Wallace, though she kept some details sketchy. She didn’t mention the mummified finger.

The professor had listened soberly, then shrugged. “No worries, lass. Your secret is safe with me. If I can help you catch the boggins who killed Marco and sent your uncle to the hospital, then all’s the better, I say.”

So they had set off.

But even now, they still had a long way to go.

Gray mounted his stallion, Pip, and after a bit of a shuffle, they left the farm and headed overland. Dr. Boyle led the way atop his gelding. They followed single file up a winding trail.

Gray had not been on horseback in ages. It took him a good mile to feel comfortable, to fall into an easy rhythm with his mount. Around him, the English fells climbed higher and gathered closer. Off in the distance, the snowy crown of England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, shone in a last blaze of fire as the sun sank away.

As they trekked, a wintry silence blanketed the highlands. All that was heard was the crunch of snow under their ponies’ hooves. Gray had to admit that Wallace’s estimation of their mounts was not all bluster. Pip seemed to know where to place each hoof, even through the snow. Going downhill, the stallion never lost his footing and kept a steady balance.

Another two miles, and the way opened enough for Gray to sidle his mount next to Rachel and Seichan. The two had been whispering together.

As Gray joined them, Rachel struggled to free her plastic canteen. Seichan noted her difficulty and dropped her reins. Guiding her horse with her legs, she freed a thermos and unscrewed the top.

“Hot tea,” Seichan said and held a cup out to Rachel.

“Thank you.” Rachel took a sip, the steam bathing her face. “Ah, that’s good. It warms right through you.”

“It’s a special herbal blend of mine.”

Rachel nodded her thanks again as she finished her tea and passed back the cup.

Ahead, Kowalski slouched in his saddle, half-asleep, his head nodding, trusting his pony to follow behind Wallace’s.

They rode through a sparse forest of alder and oak, over ferny bracken in a landscape of snow-covered turf and icy trickles of streams. Gray was glad to be on horseback, not trekking on foot. Unlike Rufus, who didn’t seem to mind as he trotted alongside them, hopping from hillock to hillock through the damper areas. The air grew colder as the sun sank away.

“How much farther, do you think?” Rachel asked. She kept her voice hushed. The cold silence of the place had that effect.

Gray shook his head. Wallace had refused to give any more detail than “far up in the wilds of the fell.” Still, Gray didn’t worry about finding their way back. Before he set off, he had activated a handheld GPS unit in his pocket. It monitored their trail, leaving little digital bread crumbs to follow.

Rachel huddled deeper into her heavy jacket. Her breath puffed into the cold air. “Maybe we should have waited until morning.”

Seichan spoke hollowly. “No. If there are any answers out here, the quicker we find them and move on, the better.”

Gray agreed, but right now a roaring fire sounded pretty damn good. Still, he noted a strained set to Seichan’s lips. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her.

Dropping back, Gray used the moment to truly observe the two women. They were studies in contrasts. Rachel rode easily, swaying in a relaxed but ready manner, adapting to her new environment. She spent much of the time looking around her, taking it all in. Whereas Seichan rode as if into battle. She was plainly a skilled rider, but he noted how she corrected even the slightest misstep by her pony. As if everything had to bend to her will. Like Rachel, she also took in her surroundings, but her gaze darted about, pinched with calculation.

Yet despite their differences, the two women bore some striking similarities. Each was strong-willed, confident, challenging. And at times, they could take his breath away with a single glance.

Gray forced his attention away as he realized there was one other trait both women shared. He had no future with either one of them. He had closed that chapter with Rachel long ago, and it was a book best never opened with Seichan.

Lost in private thoughts, the group continued silently through the mountains. Over the next hour, the trek became a blur of rocky escarpments, snowy cliffs, and patches of black forest. At last they crested a rise and a deep valley appeared ahead. The way down was staggeringly steep.

Wallace drew them to a halt. “Almost there,” he said.

Under a crisp starry sky, they’d had little difficulty riding in the dark, but below lay true night. A dark wood filled the valley.

But that wasn’t all.

Against that black canvas, a few ruddy glows dotted the forest, like tiny campfires. They would’ve been easy to miss during the day.

“What are those glows down there?” Gray asked.

“Peat fires,” Wallace said, blowing into his gloved palms to warm the ice from his beard. “A goodly part of the fells is covered in peat. Mostly blanket mires.”

“And that would be what in English?” Kowalski asked.

Wallace explained, but Gray was familiar enough with peat. It was an accumulation of decayed vegetable matter: trees, leaves, mosses, fungi. Piles of it formed in damp areas. Deposits were common in places where glaciers had retreated and carved out a mountainous landscape, like here in the Lake District.

Wallace pointed down into the valley. “Below is a forest growing out of one of the deepest peat bogs in the region. It stretches thousands of acres from here. Most of the peat deposits in the region only go down ten feet or so. The valley here has spots that are ten times as deep. It’s a very old bog.”

“And the fires?” Rachel asked.

“Aye, that’s one good thing about peat,” Wallace said. “It burns. Peat has been harvested as a fuel source for as long as man has been around. For cooking, for heating. I suspect such natural fires as those below are what gave ancient man the idea to start burning the bloody muck to begin with.”

“How long have these valley fires been burning?” Gray asked.

Wallace shrugged. “No saying. They were smoldering when I first came here three years ago. Creeping slowly underground, they’re all but impossible to smother. They just burn and burn, fed by a bottomless well of fuel. Some peat fires have been known to burn for centuries.”

“Are they dangerous?” Rachel asked.

“Aye, lassie. You have to be careful where you step. Ground may look solid, even covered in snow, but a few feet below could be a fiery hell. Flaming pockets of peat and rivers of fire.”

Wallace tapped his mount with his heels and began his descent into the valley. “But no worries. I know the safe paths. Don’t go straying off on your own. Stick to my heels.”

No one argued. Even Rufus moved closer to his master’s side. Gray pulled out his GPS unit, making sure it was still tracking their route. On the small screen was a topographical map. A line of small red dots traced their trail back out of the fells. Satisfied, Gray returned the device to his coat pocket.

He noted Seichan staring at him. She glanced away, a bit quickly, when caught.

Wallace led them down a switchbacking path into the valley. Loose scree and crumbling turf made for a treacherous descent, but Wallace proved true to his word. He got them safely to the valley floor.

“Keep to the trail from here,” Wallace warned and set off. “What trail?” Kowalski mumbled.

Gray understood his partner’s confusion. Ahead lay a flat stretch of snowy open ground. The only features were a few mounds of heather and a handful of lichen-covered boulders that looked like huddled stone giants. To the far left, a rosy glow shone from a patch of black turf outlined by green sphagnum moss. Smoke smudged upward against the snowy backdrop. The cold air smelled like a burned ham.

Wallace took a deep breath. “Reminds me of home,” he said gustily as he exhaled, his brogue thickening. “Nothing like the scent of burning peat to accompany a nice dram of Scotch whiskey.”

“Really?” Kowalski perked up, his nose in the air.

Wallace led them in a winding route among the tall boulders. Despite his warnings, he seemed little concerned. Most of the fires were at the edges of the valley. A few were even up in the higher hills. Gray knew that such hot spots were usually started by wildfires that burned down into the subsurface, then smoldered there for years. The edges of the peat deposits were the most vulnerable to such penetration.

Beyond the open stretch, the wall of dark forest opened. Snow-laden boughs reflected the starlight, but below the bower, the way was pitch-black. Wallace had prepared for that. Leaning down, he clicked on a lantern tied to his saddle. As in a cave, the single lamp had a long reach.

They headed into the forest, still keeping to single file. The air grew less smoky. The forest was a mix of myrtle, birch, and pine, along with massive oaks that looked centuries old. Their trunks were gnarled, their branches still encrusted with dry brown leaves. Acorns littered the snowy ground, which accounted for the number of squirrels that chattered and fled from their path.

Gray saw something larger scurry off, low to the ground.

Rufus made an aborted lunge toward it, but Wallace yelled, “Leave it be! That badger will skin your nose straight off your face.”

Kowalski eyed the dark forest with open suspicion. “What about bears? Do you have any in England?”

“Of course,” Wallace said.

Kowalski stepped his pony closer to the man with the shotgun.

“We have plenty of bears in our zoos,” Wallace continued with a smile. “But none in the wild since the Middle Ages.”

Kowalski scowled at the man for scaring him, but he didn’t move away.

They continued through the old forest for another half hour. Traveling in the dark, Gray became thoroughly lost. The dense forest hid any landmarks.

Finally, the trees fell away and another field opened. Starlight bathed a wide shallow hollow almost an acre in size. Grasses and bracken poked from the fresh snow that covered the hollow, along with stumps of trees that had been felled to open the area.

It was otherwise unmarked—but it was not empty.

To one side stood two dark tent-cabins. Heavy fabric stretched on steel frames. Beside them, squares of excavated peat were piled into tiny pyramids, ready to burn as heat for the cabins. But no one was here. During the winter months the site was abandoned due to the threat of heavy snow.

Still, it wasn’t the dark campsite that drew everyone’s attention. Gray stared into the center of the hollow. The excavation site was marked off with yellow survey strings that crisscrossed the area in a large grid. As if trapped in this string web, giant stones rose from the ground in a crude ring. Each one towered twice Gray’s height. Atop one pair of stones lay a massive slab, forming a crude doorway into the circle.

Gray remembered Wallace’s description of the Neolithic sites that dotted the region. Apparently he had found a new one, one lost for ages in this bog forest.

“Looks like a little Stonehenge,” Kowalski said.

Wallace slid from his saddle and took his pony’s lead in hand. “Only this site is older than Stonehenge. Much older.”

They all dismounted. A rough sheltered paddock stood near the cabins, where they walked their ponies and set about unloading saddles and rubbing down their mounts. Kowalski fetched water from a nearby stream.

Wallace explained about the discovery, how clues found in the Domesday Book had led him here, to a place marked in Latin as “wasted.” “I found no trace of the town itself. It must have been razed to the ground. But while hunting, I came upon this stone circle. It was half-buried in peat. An untrained eye could easily have mistaken it for ordinary boulders, especially as they were covered in lichen and moss. But the rocks were a type of bluestone not native to the fells.”

His excitement grew as he talked. With the ponies settled, Wallace led them over to the stone ring. He carried his lantern. Gray also removed a flashlight from his saddlebag. As a group, they climbed over the survey strings and crunched through the ankle-deep snow. The stone ring sat in a square of excavated soil. Over the years, teams of archaeologists had been slowly digging the rocks free of the layers of peat.

“The stones were half-buried when I first stumbled here. Their monstrous weight sank them into the muck over the passing millennia.”

“Millennia?” Rachel asked. “How old is the place?”

“I’ve dated it to two thousand years older than Stonehenge. That corresponds to the time of the first settlers to occupy the British Isles. To give you some perspective, that’s a thousand years before the Great Pyramids were built.”

As they reached the dark ring, Gray flashed his light toward the nearest stone. Cleared of moss and lichen, there was no doubt it was man-made. Crude petroglyphs had been etched into the side facing Gray. The carvings covered the entire exposed surface—but it was all the same motif.

“Spirals,” Gray mumbled, drawing Rachel’s attention.

She joined him, as did Wallace.

“A very common pagan symbol,” the professor said. “Representing the soul’s journey. This example is almost an exact replica of stone markings found at Newgrange, a pre-Celtic tomb complex in Ireland. Newgrange was dated to around 3200 B.C., about the same age as this ring, suggesting they were likely built by the same tribe of people.”

“The Druids?” Kowalski asked.

Wallace scowled. “Och, where did you learn your history, young man? Druids were Celtic tribal priests. They didn’t come onto the stage for another three thousand years.” He waved an arm to encompass the Neolithic stone ring. “This is the handiwork of the earliest tribe to settle the British Isles, a people who were here long before the Celts and Druids.”

Kowalski merely shrugged, taking no offense at this slight to his knowledge.

Wallace sighed. “But I guess I understand how most people make that mistake. The Celts revered this lost people, believed them to be gods, even incorporated that culture into their own. They worshiped at these old sites, folded them into their mythology, believing the ancient stones to be the home of their gods. In fact, what’s considered to be high Celtic art today is based on these old pagan carvings. Ultimately, everything traces back to here.” Wallace pointed to the towering henge stones. “But the bigger question remains, who were these ancient ring-builders?”

Gray sensed Wallace’s excitement stoking higher. It looked like he had more to say, something that he was still holding back, ever the showman. But before he could continue, Rachel interrupted.

“You better see this.”

She had circled to the far side of the stone and stood within the ring. Her arm pointed to the surface of the stone on that side.

Gray and the others stepped over the survey strings to join her. He lifted his flashlight. There was only a single symbol carved into the rock on that side. Turning, he shone his light across to the other standing stones—twelve in total, he noted. Each was marked with the same symbol.

“The quartered circle,” Gray said.

Wallace nodded. “Now you know why I was so sure that the diary of that medieval scholar, Martin Borr, pointed straight here. The mark was drawn on his journal.”

Gray turned in a slow circle.

What did it all mean?

Facing the first stone again, Gray contemplated its significance. Spirals on one side, a pagan cross on the other. He realized it was the same pattern as the two symbols burned into the leather satchel: a spiral on one side, a cross on the other.

Gray faced Rachel. He read the same understanding in her eyes. He also knew what she was thinking. If they wanted answers, it was high time they came clean with Dr. Wallace Boyle.

8:42 P.M.

Wallace studied the artifact. He sat at a card table in one of the tent-cabins, the lantern at his elbow. Rachel sat next to him. She warmed her hands on a cup of tea. It was the last from Seichan’s thermos. She sipped it, appreciating the heat if not the slight bitterness. She would have preferred a dollop of cream with it, but the tea went a long way to chasing the last of the chill from her body.

The team had spent two hours out in the cold, taking pictures and measurements, recording everything here. But to what end?

Rachel stared across the table at Gray. As they had worked, Gray had grown more introspective. She knew him well enough to recognize when he was troubled, when he sensed he was missing something. She could read the calculations going on in his head, knew the primary question plaguing him.

What was so important about this site?

Seichan sat next to Gray. She had contributed little to the day’s work, as if she were leaving it up to them to solve this puzzle. Now they all waited for the professor’s assessment. A pair of bunkbeds filled the back half of the space. Kowalski lay sprawled on one of the bunks with an arm over his eyes, shielding them against the lamplight. Since his snores weren’t rattling the tent fabric, he must still be awake.

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Wallace finally said with a shake of his head. He held the leather satchel. He’d already examined the mummified finger. “I don’t know where Marco found this, nor why anyone would kill for it.”

“Then let’s go back to the beginning,” Gray said. “Why Father Giovanni first came here. What he hoped to gain from visiting this site.”

“It was the bodies,” Wallace mumbled, still fingering the satchel.

Rachel sat straighter. “Bodies? What bodies?”

Wallace finally placed the satchel down and leaned back in his chair. “What you have to understand is that for ages, peat bogs were revered by the ancient Celts and their Druids. They would bury or sink objects of worship into the bogs. Such places have proved to be archaeological treasure troves. Swords, crowns, jewels, pottery, even entire chariots. But human remains were also found here.”

The professor let that sink in as he stood and stepped over to a small camp stove, where he warmed his hands over a burning briquette of peat. He nodded down at the stove. “Peat was the source of life, so it had to be honored. And that honoring often came in the form of human sacrifice. The Celts would kill their victims and toss their bodies into the peat bogs to appease the gods.” He turned to face the table again. “And what goes into the peat ends up being preserved for the ages.”

“I don’t understand,” Rachel said.

Gray explained. “The acidic nature and lack of oxygen in the peat keep things from rotting.”

“Aye. Pots of butter have been found in bogs, a hundred years old. And the butter is still fresh and edible.”

Kowalski groaned in disgust and rolled to his side. “Remind me not to have toast at your house.”

Wallace ignored him. “In the same way, those sacrificed bodies were preserved. They’re known as ‘bog mummies.’ The most famous being Tollund Man, found in Denmark. He’s so well preserved that he looks as if he fell into the bog yesterday. Intact skin, organs, hair, eyelashes. Even his fingerprints can still be discerned. Examination revealed that he’d been ritually garroted. The knotted rope was still around his neck. And we know it was the Druids who killed him, as the man’s stomach was filled with mistletoe, a plant sacred to the Celtic priests.”

“And you found a bog mummy here?” Gray asked.

“Two, actually. A woman and a child. We discovered them as we were excavating the stone ring. They were found in the center, curled together in death.”

Seichan asked her first question. Her eyes flickered to Rachel, then away again. “Were they sacrificed?”

Wallace perked up at her question. “That’s exactly what we wondered. It’s now well accepted that stone rings were solar calendars, but they also served as burial sites. And this site here must have been especially holy. A stone ring within a sacred bog. We had to know if this was a natural burial or a murder.”

This last was said with a twinge of guilt.

“We were under instructions to leave the bodies intact, to send them to the university whole, but we had to know. There was no rope around the necks of the bodies, but there was another way to discover if this was a ritual sacrifice.”

Rachel understood. “Mistletoe in the stomach.”

Wallace nodded. “We performed a small examination. Well documented, I might add.” He moved to his pack, undid the ties, and removed a file. He shrugged as he returned to the table. “I wasn’t supposed to keep a hard copy.”

He sifted through the file and pulled out a set of photos. One showed the woman and child curled in black soil. The woman cradled the child in her arms. They were tucked together as if asleep. The bodies were gaunt and emaciated, but the woman’s black hair still draped her face. The next photo showed the woman naked on the table. A hand was in view, holding a dissecting scalpel.

“Before we sent the body on to the university, we wanted to see if there was any mistletoe pollen in her stomach. It was a minor violation.”

“Did you find any?” Rachel asked, suddenly not feeling so well.

“No. But we found something else rather disturbing. If you have a weak stomach, you might want to turn away.”

Rachel forced herself to keep looking.

The next photo showed a Y-shaped incision across the abdomen. The belly was peeled open, revealing the mass of internal organs. But something was clearly wrong. Wallace flipped to another photo, showing a close-up of a yellow liver. Growths protruded from its surface, covering it like a grisly field.

Wallace explained. “We found them growing throughout her abdominal cavity.”

Rachel covered her mouth. “Is that what I think it is?”

Wallace nodded. “They’re mushrooms.”

Shocked and disgusted, Gray sat back. He struggled to understand what was going on, what had been discovered here. He needed someplace to ground his inquiry, so he returned to where he first started.

“Back to Father Giovanni,” Gray said. “You said the bodies drew him here.”

“Aye.” Wallace returned to his seat and straddled his chair. “Marco heard about our discovery. In a place where Christianity and the pagan ways were still in conflict.”

“Still, that conflict didn’t truly draw him,” Gray said and stared down at the first photo of the woman with the child. There was no mistaking that tableau. Like a Madonna and child. And not just any Madonna. The tannins from the peat had dyed the woman’s skin a deep brownish-black.

“I sent him a photo of the mummies. He came the next day. He was interested in any manifestation or reference to his Black Madonna. To find such a set of bodies in a sacred pagan burial site, in a land where Christianity and ancient ways still mixed, he had to discover for himself if there was any connection to the mythology of his dark goddess.”

“And was there?” Rachel asked.

“That’s what Marco spent the past years investigating. It had him shuffling all over the British Isles. In the last month, though, I could tell that something had him especially agitated. He would never say what it was.”

“And what’s your take on the mummies?” Gray asked.

“Like I said, we didn’t find any mistletoe. I think the bodies were dead when they were buried in the bog. But who buried them and why? And why did Martin Borr mark his book with this pagan symbol? That’s what I wanted to know.”

“And?” Gray pressed the man. He was annoyingly oblique with his answers, teasing them out for greater effect.

“I have my own hypothesis,” Wallace admitted. “It goes back to where I started my investigation. The Domesday Book. Something laid waste to the nearby village or town. Something horrible enough to raze the place to the ground, to wipe all records off the maps. All records, that is, except for the cryptic reference in the great book and the mention in Martin Borr’s diary. So what happened to warrant such a reaction? I would wager it was some sort of plague or disease. Not wanting it to spread, to keep it secret, the place was destroyed.”

“But what about the bodies here?” Rachel nodded down to the photos.

“Just close your eyes and put yourself back in that town. A place isolated and under siege by some great illness. A town mixed between devout Christians and those who practiced the ancient ways in secret, who certainly must have known about this stone ring near their town, who perhaps still worshiped here. Once doom fell upon this valley, each side most likely beseeched their gods for salvation. And some probably hedged their bets, mixing the two faiths. They took a mother and a baby boy, representative of the Madonna and her child, and buried them in this ancient pagan site. I believe these two are the only bodies that escaped the fiery purge, the only two left from that old plague.”

Wallace touched the dissection photo with a finger. “Whatever struck that village was strange indeed. I don’t know of anything like this that has ever been reported in the annals of medicine or forensics. The bodies are still under investigation, and that’s being kept a guarded secret. They won’t even tell me what they found.”

“But shouldn’t you be kept informed?” Gray asked. “Aren’t you a tenured professor at the University of Edinburgh?”

Wallace’s brow crinkled in confusion, then relaxed. “Oh, no, you misunderstood me. When I said the university took the bodies, I didn’t mean Edinburgh. My grant came from abroad. It’s not an uncommon practice. For field studies, you take funds wherever you can find them.”

“So who took the bodies?”

“They were sent to the University of Oslo for initial examination.”

Gray felt kicked in the gut. It took him an extra moment to respond. Oslo. Here was the first solid connection between events here and what Painter Crowe was investigating in Norway.

While Gray grappled with the implications, Wallace continued. “I guess ultimately it all goes back to extremophiles.”

The oddity of the non sequitur snapped Gray’s focus back. “What are you talking about?”

“My funding,” Wallace said in a tone that made it sound as if it should be obvious. “Like I said. In this business, you get money where you can.”

“And how do extremophiles fit in with all that?”

Gray was well aware of the term. Extremophiles were organisms that lived under extreme conditions, ones that were considered too harsh to support life. They were mostly bacteria, found living in toxic environments like boiling deep-sea rifts or volcanic craters. Such unique organisms offered potential new compounds to the world.

And the world’s industries had certainly taken note, generating a new business called bioprospecting. But instead of prospecting for gold, they were after something just as valuable: new patents. And it turned out to be a booming business. Already extremophiles were being used to patent new industrial-strength detergents, cleansers, medicines, even an enzyme used widely by crime labs for DNA fingerprinting.

But what did all that have to do with bog mummies in England?

Wallace tried to explain. “It goes back to my initial hypothesis, one I pitched to my potential sponsors. A hypothesis about the Doomsday Book.”

Gray noted that he called it Doomsday, rather than Domesday, this time. He imagined that the professor, with his usual flair for the dramatic, had sought funding using the book’s more colorful name.

“As I mentioned, those few places in the book marked in Latin as ‘wasted,’ seemed to have been wiped off the map—literally and figuratively. What would make those old census takers do that unless something dangerous had struck these towns?”

“Like a disease or plague,” Gray said.

Wallace nodded. “And potentially it was something never seen before. These were isolated places. Who knew what might have risen out of the bogs? Peat bogs are soups of strange organisms. Bacteria, fungi, slime molds.”

“So they hired you as both an archaeologist and a bioprospector.”

Wallace shrugged. “I’m not the only one. Major industries are turning to field archaeologists. We’re delving into ancient places, sites long closed up. Just this past year, a major U.S. chemical company discovered an extremophile in a newly opened Egyptian tomb. It’s all the rage, you see.”

“And for this dig, the University of Oslo funded you.”

“No. Oslo is just as strapped as any university. Nowadays most grants are generated from corporate sponsors.”

“And which corporation hired you?”

“A biotech company, one working with genetically modified organisms. Crops and whatnot.”

Gray gripped the table’s edge. Of course. Biotechnology companies were major players in the hunt for extremophiles. Bioprospecting was their life’s blood. They cast feelers out in all directions, across all fields of study. Including, it seemed, archaeology.

Gray had no doubt who sponsored Wallace’s research.

He spoke that name aloud. “Viatus.”

Wallace’s eyes grew larger. “How did you know?”

11:44 P.M.

Seichan stood outside her cabin. She held a cigarette in her hand, unlit and forgotten. The stars were as crisp as cut glass in the night sky. Streams of icy fog crept through the trees. She inhaled a deep breath, smelling the peat smoke, both from their camp stoves and from the smoldering fires underground.

The ring of stones, rimed in ice, looked like chunks of silver.

She pictured the two bodies buried in the center. For some reason, she thought back to the curator she had slain in Venice—or rather, to his wife and child. She pictured the two of them buried here instead. Knowing it was born out of guilt, she shook her head against such foolish sentimentality. She had a mission to complete.

But tonight her guilt had sharpened to an uncomfortable edge.

She stared down at her other hand. She held a steel thermos. It had kept her tea warm. The warmth also kept her biotoxin incubated. The group had talked at length about extremophiles after the revelation about the source of Dr. Boyle’s funding. The source of the toxin supplied to her was a bacteria discovered in a volcanic vent in Chile. Frost sensitive, it had to be kept warm.

No one noticed that only Rachel drank the tea.

Seichan only pretended to sip at it.

Pocketing her cigarette, she crossed to a windblown bank of snow and set about filling the thermos with handfuls of snow. The cold would sterilize the thermos, killing any remaining bacteria. Once it was packed full, she screwed the top back on. Her fingers trembled. She wanted to blame it on the cold. She threaded the top on wrong, and it jammed. She fought it for a breath as anger flared hotly through her. Frustrated, she yanked her arm back and hurled the thermos into the forest.

For half a minute, she breathed heavily, steaming the air.

She didn’t cry—and for some reason that helped center her.

A door cracked open in the other cabin. She shared her cabin with Rachel; the men shared the other. She stepped into the open to see who else was still up.

The large frame and lumbering gait identified the man readily enough. Kowalski spotted her and lifted an arm. He pointed a thumb toward the paddock.

“Going to see a man about a horse,” he said and disappeared around the corner.

It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t actually meeting someone by the ponies. She was that out of sorts. She heard him whistling back there as he relieved himself.

She checked her watch. It was a few minutes before midnight. The timetable was set. There was no going back. They’d had sufficient time to examine the site. The Guild would only allow so much latitude for Gray’s team to track Father Giovanni’s path, to discover the key before anyone else. She had argued for more time but had been slapped down. So be it. They would have to keep moving.

She glanced toward the other cabin. Kowalski had better not be too long. He wasn’t. After a minute, he came lumbering back, still whistling under his breath.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked as he joined her.

She fingered her cigarette out and lifted it as explanation enough.

“Those things’ll kill you.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a stub of a cigar, and matched her gesture. “So you might as well get it over with quickly.”

He clenched the chewed end between his molars, pulled out an old-fashioned box of wooden matchsticks, and deftly scratched two sticks across the fabric of the tent. Twin flames lit up. He passed one to her. He’d plainly done this before.

He spoke around the end of his cigar. “Gray just hit the sack. Spent like two hours trying to get more out of that old professor. I had to get the hell out of there, get some fresh air. That dog kept stinking up the place. And no wonder. Did you see what he feeds that damn mutt? Sausages and onions. What sort of dog chow is that?”

Seichan lit her cigarette. She let the guy ramble, grateful for the mindless chatter. Unfortunately, his chatter was apparently leading up to something—and not all that smoothly.

“So,” he said, “what’s up with you and Gray?”

Seichan choked as she inhaled.

“I mean, he’s always eyeballing you. And you just stare right through him as if he were a ghost. Like two schoolkids with the hots for each other.”

Seichan balked at the innuendo, ready to deny, uncomfortable with how close the man was to the truth. Luckily she was saved from responding.

As midnight struck, the valley exploded.

Throughout the forest, geysers of flame shot skyward, one after the other. They were accompanied by soft concussions, easy to miss unless you were listening for them. The incendiary charges, coupled with a rubidium thermal catalyst that turned water into an accelerant, had been planted deep into wet peat, timed to blow at midnight. The entire valley was meant to burn.

Closer at hand, three more explosions erupted from the center of the ring of stones. Fiery spirals twisted high into the sky.

Even across the distance, the heat burned her face.

People came running out of the cabins behind them. Kowalski cursed hotly next to her.

She didn’t turn, hypnotized by the flames. Her heart pounded. The conflagration began to spread outward—quickly, too quickly—both here and out in the forest. The ignited charges were only supposed to chase Gray’s team off—to light a fire under them literally and figuratively—while destroying all evidence in their wake.

She watched the flames grow.

Someone had miscalculated, underestimated the combustibility of the peat. For a moment, an oily flicker of distrust flashed. Had she been betrayed? Were they meant to die here?

Going coldly logical, she mentally snuffed out those doubts. There was no gain in their deaths. At least not at this time. It had to be an error of execution. The old fires, smoldering for years, must have weakened the stability of the peat beds, turning the entire valley into tinder for the right torch.

Still, the end result was the same.

As she stared, the fires closed in a circle around them.

They would never get out of here alive.

15
October 12, 11:35 P.M.
Oslo, Norway

Monk strode briskly across the research park. Under his heavy coat, he wore a Viatus security uniform. At his side, John Creed was equally bundled against the cold, but he had a lab jacket folded over one arm.

They had no trouble driving through the main gates of the Viatus campus, flashing their false ID cards. They had parked their car in the employee parking lot and headed on foot across the grounds. Viatus had facilities around the world, but Oslo was home to their main facility. The place was spread over a hundred acres, with various divisions and office buildings dotting a parklike setting. All the structures were sleek and modern, plainly influenced by Scandinavian minimalism.

In the center of the campus rose a meeting hall, made entirely of glass. It shone like a diamond. Through the walls could be seen the sweeping hull of a Viking ship. It was not a model, but an authentic piece of history. The ship had been discovered frozen in ice somewhere up in the Arctic region of Norway. It had cost millions to salvage and preserve it, all financed by Ivar Karlsen.

It must be good to be so rich.

Monk continued across the campus. The Crop Biogenics Research Lab was in a remote corner, a long walk from the parking lot.

Monk pulled the hood of his parka farther over his head. “So, Doogie,” he said, trying to distract himself from the cold, “what exactly did you do to wash out of the Corps and end up in Sigma, anyway?”

Creed made a dismissive noise and mumbled, “Don’t ask.” Plainly he didn’t want to talk about it. And he was edgy.

Plus calling him Doogie probably didn’t help.

Creed was not exactly the talkative type, but Monk had to admit the man was sharp. He had already acquired a smattering of Norwegian, even honing a decent accent. Monk knew only one person who was that quick. He pictured her smile, the curve of her backside, and the barely perceptible bump of her growing belly. Thinking of Kat helped keep him warm long enough to reach their destination.

The Crop Biogenics lab looked like a silver egg standing on end. It was all mirrored glass and reflected the grounds, giving the facility a surreal appearance, as if the building were in the process of warping into another dimension.

The lab building was a relatively new construction, completed only five years ago. It had been engineered with a sophisticated security system that required only a skeletal staff at night.

Not an obstacle for someone outfitted with DARPA’s latest toys.

Monk carried a backpack over one shoulder and a Taser XREP pistol tucked under the other. The weapon discharged a small electrified dart that could knock out a target for five minutes. It was a precaution that he hoped they would not have to employ.

Creed moved to the main entrance.

Monk touched his throat. He had a microphone taped over his larynx and an earpiece in place. “Sir, we’re heading into the building now.”

Painter responded immediately in his ear, “Any problems?”

“Not so far.”

“Good. Keep me updated.”

“Yes, sir.”

Creed stepped to the electronic key reader. He slipped a card into its slot. A thin wire ran from the keycard to a device fastened around his wrist. It was a hacking device that used quantum algorithms to pick any lock, basically the equivalent of a digital skeleton key. The lock released, and Creed pulled the door open.

They headed inside.

The entry was dimly lit, and the receptionist’s desk was empty. Monk knew that a security guard manned a monitoring station on the floor above. As long as they set off no alarms, they should have no trouble reaching the computer servers on the basement levels. Their mission was to open a back door into the research mainframes. With any luck, they’d be out of there in under ten minutes.

As Monk crossed the lobby, he kept his face averted from the cameras. As did Creed. They had memorized the cameras’ positions from the schematics provided by Kat.

Together they headed toward the bank of elevators. Creed walked a bit quickly. Monk touched his arm and forced him to slow down, to not act so panicked.

They reached the elevator bay, where the push of a button opened a set of doors. They moved inside. Another key reader glowed red. The elevator would not move without the proper code.

Monk hovered a finger over the B2 button—Basement Level 2—where the servers were housed. Creed waited to swipe his skeleton key. Monk hesitated before he pressed the button.

“What?” Creed mouthed, fearful of speaking English in case the elevator was monitored.

Monk pointed to the buttons below his finger. They ran from B2 to B5. According to the schematics provided, there were not supposed to be any levels below B2.

So what was on those levels?

Monk knew they had a mission, but there was a subtext to this night’s operation: to find out what was really going on at Viatus. It was a long shot that the corporation kept anything incriminating on its servers. Any real dirt was most likely buried much deeper.

Like underground.

Monk shifted his finger down and pressed B5. Creed glared at him, plainly questioning what he was doing.

Just a little improvisation, he answered silently. Sigma wasn’t about following orders blindly but about thinking on your feet.

Creed needed to learn that.

Monk pointed toward the key reader and motioned for Creed to swipe his electronic card. The detour would only take an extra minute. He would simply take a peek below. If it was just a maintenance level or some sort of employee swimming pool, they could quickly hop back up to B2, tag the servers, and get out of there.

With an exasperated sigh, Creed shoved in his card. After a half second, the light flashed green.

The elevator began to descend.

No alarms sounded.

The levels ticked downward, and the elevator opened into a closed lobby. A sealed door stood directly across from them. Monk paused, suddenly having second thoughts.

What would Gray do here?

Monk mentally shook his head. Since when was following Gray’s example a good thing? The man had an uncanny knack for trouble.

As the elevator began to close, Monk grabbed Creed by the elbow and leaped into the lobby.

“Are you nuts?” Creed hissed under his breath, shaking loose Monk’s grip.

Probably.

Monk moved closer to examine the door. It had no key reader. Only a glowing panel that was plainly meant to read a palm.

“What now?” Creed whispered.

Undaunted, Monk placed his prosthetic hand atop the reader. Pressure sensitive, the pad grew brighter. A bar of light scanned up and down. He held his breath—then heard the lock’s tumblers release.

A name flashed above the reader.

IVAR KARLSEN

Creed frowned as he read the name, then glared over at Monk, angry that he’d not been informed about this extra precaution.

It had been Kat’s idea. She had obtained the CEO’s full records, including a palm print. It had taken only a moment to digitize the data and feed it into the equivalent of a laser printer. The device had then burned a copy of the print across Monk’s synthetic palm, scoring the blank skin into a perfect match.

If anyone had full access to this facility, it was certainly its CEO.

Monk moved to the unlocked door.

Let’s see what Ivar’s hiding down here.

11:46 P.M.

Painter kept watch across the street from the Grand Hotel Oslo. He sat on a bench with a wide view of the entrance. It was no wonder Senator Gorman had chosen this place as his residence. Built in an extravagant Louis XVI revival style, the hotel climbed eight stories and took up an entire city block, with a central clock tower looming over its entrance. It was also conveniently located directly across from Norway’s parliament buildings.

A perfect choice for a visiting U.S. senator.

And an unlikely spot for an ambush.

Still, Painter wanted to be thorough. He had been here for an hour, wearing a heavy coat, hat, and scarf. He also moved with a bit of a hunch that was only half faked. His knife wound had begun to ache as the pain relievers wore off. For the past hour, he had canvassed all the public areas of the hotel, including the Limelight Bar, where Gorman was supposed to meet their mysterious contact. As an extra precaution, Painter had the stolen WASP dagger tucked into the back of his belt and a small 9mm Beretta in a shoulder holster.

But so far, everything appeared quiet.

Painter glanced up at the clock tower. It was a few minutes before midnight. Time for this spy to come in out of the cold.

Standing up, he headed across the street, as prepared as he could be.

Monk had already checked in, and earlier in the evening Painter had had a short but intense conversation via satellite phone with Gray. He had learned that the Viatus Corporation had funded the dig in England. They had been bioprospecting for new organisms to exploit for their genetic research. Had they found something? Gray had described the gruesome discovery, at a Neolithic stone ring, of bodies buried and preserved in a bog, bodies riddled with some sort of fungus.

Was that significant?

Painter recalled that the murdered Princeton geneticist had believed the new genes inserted into the Viatus corn samples were not of bacterial origin. Could they have been fungal, genes extracted from those mushrooms? And if so, why all the secrecy and bloodshed to hide the fact?

Painter shoved the questions aside for now. He needed to focus on the immediate task at hand. He entered the lobby and circumspectly observed his surroundings. He compared the faces of the hotel employees with those in his earlier canvass and made sure there were no strangers among them.

Satisfied, he strode over to the hotel bar. The Limelight was dark and richly paneled, illuminated only by the glow of wall lanterns. Red leather club chairs and sofas divided the space. It smelled vaguely of cigars.

At this hour the establishment was sparsely populated. It wasn’t hard to spot Senator Gorman over by the bar. Especially with the burly man sitting next to him, wearing a suit too small for his bulk. He might as well have bodyguard stenciled across his forehead. The guard sat with his back to the bar and, with no subtlety, scanned the patrons for any threats.

Painter observed them from the corner of his eye. He passed among the chairs and took a seat at a booth near the entrance. A barmaid took his order.

Now to see who, if anyone, showed up.

He didn’t have long to wait.

A man appeared, wearing a heavy ankle-length overcoat. He searched the bar, then his gaze fixed on the senator. Painter was startled to realize he’d seen this man before, back when the luncheon had broken up. He’d been complaining to the Club of Rome’s copresident.

Painter struggled to remember his name.

Something like Anthony.

He played back the conversation in his head.

No… Antonio.

A satisfied smile flickered over the man’s features as he spotted the senator. This had to be their guy. From the earlier conversation, the man clearly had no love for Karlsen. Antonio’s smile faded as he finally noted the bodyguard, too. The instructions had been for the senator to come alone. Antonio hesitated near the entrance.

Time to move.

Painter slid smoothly out of his seat and crossed in front of Antonio. He grabbed the man’s elbow in one hand and poked his Beretta in the man’s ribs. He kept a smile on his face.

“Let’s talk,” Painter said and guided him away from the bar.

It was his intention to interrogate the man in private. The less Senator Gorman was involved in all this, the better for all.

Antonio allowed himself to be led away at gunpoint, his face a mask of terror.

“I work for the U.S. government,” Painter said pointedly. “We’re going to have a short conversation before you meet with the senator.”

The terror faded from his eyes, but not completely. Painter guided him toward a settee in an empty area of the lobby. It was partially shielded by a low wall and a potted fern.

They never made it.

Antonio suddenly tripped and fell to one knee. He gurgled and gagged. His hands fluttered to his neck. Protruding from his throat was the pointed barb of an arrow bolt. Blood splattered the marble tile floor as Antonio dropped to his hands and knees.

Painter noted a small blinking light at the back of the man’s neck, nestled in the plastic feathers of the bolt. Painter’s body reacted before the thought even formed.

Bomb.

He leaped forward and dove over the low wall. He’d landed behind it when the charge exploded. It was as loud as a thunderclap in a cave. Pain squeezed his head. He went momentarily deaf—then sound returned.

Screams, shouts, cries.

It all sounded hollow.

He rolled back up, keeping sheltered behind the nearby wall. Smoke choked the lobby, lit by puddles of fire. The explosion had blackened a large section of the floor. Antonio’s body had been obliterated into bits of flaming ruin. The superheated air burned with a chemical sting.

Thermite and white phosphorus.

Painter coughed and searched the lobby. From Antonio’s position, the arrow had to have come from inside the hotel, off to the left. From that direction, two masked figures ran through the smoke from the staircase. Another slammed through the front door.

They pounded toward the Limelight Bar.

They were going after the senator.

12:04 A.M.

Monk stood at the open door. Beyond the threshold stretched a long hall. Lights turned on, one after the other, illuminating the way ahead.

“We’ll take a fast look,” Monk whispered. “Then get the hell out of here.”

Creed waited for Monk to take the lead, then followed. The kid barely breathed, and he definitely didn’t blink.

Halfway down the passage, double doors opened to the right and left. Monk headed toward them. The place smelled of disinfectant, like a hospital. The smooth linoleum floor and featureless walls added to the sense of sterility.

He also noted that there were no cameras in this hall. Apparently the company placed its full trust in the extra layer of electronic security down here.

Monk reached the doors. They were palm-locked like the other. Monk pressed his hand against it. Surely there were no areas off-limits to Karlsen.

He was right.

The lock snicked open.

Monk headed through and found himself in an enclosed entryway facing another set of doors. The antechamber was glass. Beyond the doors opened a huge room. Lights flickered on, but they were muted a soft amber.

He tried the next set of doors. Unlocked. The doors were clearly not intended to keep anyone out, so much as to keep the room’s occupants in.

As Monk pushed into the next room, he gaped at the walls to either side. Extending the length of the long room were floor-to-ceiling windows. A low tonal buzzing filled the room, like a radio tuned between stations.

Creed followed at his heels. “Are those—?”

Monk nodded. “Beehives.”

Behind the glass, a solid mass of bees writhed and churned in a hypnotic pattern, wings flickering, bodies dancing. Racks and tiers of honeycombs rose in stacks to the roof. The hives were divided into sections along the length of the room. Each apiary was marked with a cryptic code. Studying them, Monk noted that each number was prefixed with the same three letters: IMD.

He didn’t understand the significance, but plainly the bees were used in some sort of research.

Or maybe Ivar just had a real hard-on for fresh honey.

Monk moved with Creed to the closest bank. The buzzing grew louder, the agitation more frenzied. The lights, though muted, must have stirred them.

“I think they’re Africanized bees,” Creed said. “Look at how aggressive they are.”

“I don’t care where they came from. What is Viatus doing with them?”

And why all this security?

Creed reached toward a small drawer in the hive window.

“Careful,” Monk warned.

Creed pinched his brows and pulled open the drawer. “Don’t worry. I’ve worked with bees before at my family’s farm back in Ohio.”

The drawer came out to reveal a sealed box with a meshed end. A single large bee rested inside.

“The queen,” Creed said.

The bees became even more frenzied within the cage.

Monk noted that the box was stamped with the same cryptic code as the cage. As Creed returned the drawer to its slot, Monk freed a small pen camera. Pressing a button, he took a short digital video. He recorded the banks of bees and the numbers above each hive.

It could be important.

For now, the best they could do was document it all and get the hell out. Once finished recording, Monk checked his watch. He still wanted to check the room across the hall before they headed to the servers and finished their primary mission.

“C’mon,” Monk said and led his partner back out into the hallway.

Stepping across the hall, Monk pressed his palm against the other door’s reader. As the door unlocked, he headed inside. It opened into an anteroom similar to the other lab. But here respirator masks hung on wall pegs to one side. Ahead, lights flickered on as before. The room beyond the door was the same size as the other.

But there were no bees.

The room held four long raised beds running the length of the room. Even from here, Monk recognized the little fleshy umbrellas growing out of the beds in riotous exuberance.

“Mushrooms,” Creed said.

Monk passed into the next room. The door opened with the small pop of an air seal. The room was negatively pressurized to keep the air inside. Monk immediately understood why.

Creed covered his mouth and nose.

The stench struck like a slap to the face. The air was muggy, hot, and smelled like a mix of brine, dead fish, and rotted meat. Monk wanted to turn tail and run out, but Painter had related his discussion with Gray.

About mushrooms.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Monk freed his camera, ready to document it. Creed joined him. He handed over a respirator from the anteroom. Monk pulled it over his face gratefully.

At least someone’s thinking…

The respirator’s filters took the edge off the stink. Able to breathe, he headed to the closest bed. The mushrooms were growing out of watery black mulch that looked oily.

Creed slipped on a pair of latex gloves and joined him. He shook open another glove. “We should get a sample of the fungus.”

Monk nodded and set about recording it all.

Creed reached toward one of the mushrooms. He delicately grabbed it by the base and pulled it up. It lifted freely—but with it came a fleshy chunk of something attached to it. Creed shuddered and dropped it in disgust. It splashed into the wet mulch, shivering the surface like a soup of loose gelatin.

Only then did Monk recognize the growth medium for the mushrooms.

Clotted blood.

“Did you see…?” Creed stammered. “Was that…?”

Monk had noted what Creed’s mushroom had been attached to. It was a kidney. And from the size of it, possibly human.

Monk waved Creed back to the gruesome task. “Get a sample.”

With his camera recording, Monk moved down the long bed of mushrooms. The smallest were closest to the door. They were white as bone. But the mushrooms grew larger along the row, gaining a richer hue of crimson.

Monk noted a couple of brown stalks poking out of the blood. He lowered his camera for a closer look. They were not stalks. With a cold chill, he realized they were human fingers.

He reached and pinched one of the fingers with his prosthetic hand. He pulled the finger up, dragging a hand out of the muck. As he raised it higher, he saw it was attached to a forearm. Mushrooms grew out of the flesh.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly lowered the limb back into the tank. He didn’t need to see any more. Entire bodies lay buried in the blood, fertilizer for the mushrooms.

He also noted the dark brown skin of the arm, an uncommon sight in snow-white Norway. Monk recalled the farm site in Africa, the one destroyed in a night of bloodshed and fire.

Had more than corn been harvested from there?

Monk found himself breathing harder. He moved quickly to the end of the row. Here the mushrooms had matured into thick stems topped by ribbed pods. They looked fleshy and fibrous.

With his prosthesis, Monk nudged one of the pods. As he touched it, the bulb contracted in a single squeeze. From its top, a dense powdery smoke puffed outward and spread quickly through the air.

Fungal spores.

Monk danced back, thankful for the respirators. He did not want to breathe in those spores.

As if signaled by the first pod, others began to erupt. Monk retreated, chased by swirling clouds of spores.

“We have to get out of here!” Monk yelled across the room, his words muffled by the respirator.

Creed had just collected a sample of the mushroom and tied it into his loose latex glove. He glanced at Monk, not understanding. But his eyes widened as more of the puffballs exploded into the air.

They had to get back out into the hall.

Suddenly, overhead vents opened in the ceiling, perhaps triggered by a biological sensor. Foam jetted out of the ceiling in a massive flush. It spread over the floor and piled up quickly. Monk ran under one of the vents and almost got knocked down by the force of it. He slipped and slid.

By the time he reached Creed, the foam was waist deep.

“Go!” Monk hollered and pointed toward the door.

Together they slammed through the first door and into the anteroom. It was also full of foam, all the way to the ceiling. They had to paw their way through it blind.

Monk hit the hallway door first.

He shoved the handle and shouldered into the door. It refused to budge. He shoved again and again, but he knew the truth.

They were locked inside.

12:08 A.M.

As smoke choked the lobby, Painter vaulted over the low wall. Fires still burned on the floor. Blood made the marble slippery. He had his pistol out and skidded straight into the masked gunman who had barreled through the front door. Focused on the bar, the assailant failed to see Painter in time. Painter fired point-blank into his chest.

The impact spun the attacker away, blood flying.

One down.

People screamed and fled out into the street or hid behind furniture. Painter sprinted straight across the open lobby.

Ahead, at the entrance to the Limelight Bar, the senator’s bodyguard appeared in a shooter’s stance, arms out, cradling his service weapon. He had taken cover behind a potted plant. It wasn’t enough shelter. The other two gunmen already had their sights fixed on the entrance.

Fern leaves shredded under a barrage of machine-gun fire. The man was knocked flat on his back. Painter never slowed. He leaped to a chair outside the bar and flew headlong into the space. He landed on one of the leather sofas and shoulder-rolled to his feet.

He had only seconds.

A cascade of gunfire tore into the room. It arced across the wall behind the bar, shattering bottles and mirrors.

Painter took in the room with one glance.

The senator was not in sight.

The bodyguard would not have left him in the open. There was only one door leading out of this place. The restroom at the back. Painter ran for it and slammed through the door. A bullet burned past his ear. The shot had come from inside the bathroom.

Senator Gorman stood with his back to a row of sinks, a pistol in his hand, pointed at Painter.

Painter raised his arms. “Senator Gorman!” he called out firmly. “I’m General Metcalf’s man!”

“The DoD investigator?” Gorman lowered his pistol, his face collapsing with relief.

Painter rushed forward. “We have to get out of here.”

“What about Samuels?” The senator glanced back at the door.

Painter guessed that was the bodyguard. “Dead, sir.” He motioned the senator toward the stained-glass window at the back of the restroom.

“It’s barred shut. I looked.”

Painter shoved the window sash open. An ornate set of iron bars did block the way. He punched his palm into them, and the grate popped free and swung open on its hinges. During his earlier canvass of the meeting place, he had removed the bolts.

Never hurt to secure a back door.

“Out!” Painter commanded and offered the senator a knee to climb up.

Gorman took the help and hauled himself into the window.

As Painter pushed the senator, he heard a thunk behind him. A glance revealed a black arrowhead sticking out of the restroom’s plank door.

Oh, crap…

Painter sent the senator sailing out the window and followed on the man’s heels. Literally—he took an Italian loafer to the left eye. But it was small damage, considering the explosion that followed.

Flames and smoke blasted out the open window.

The heat rolled over them.

Painter shoved off the senator. As the blast of flames died, Painter dashed to the window, tugged the lower sash down, and swung the iron bars back in place.

Let them wonder how they’d escaped a locked room.

The confusion might buy them an extra few minutes as their pursuers continued to search the hotel.

Painter returned to Gorman’s side. “I have a car stashed two blocks away.”

They hurried off together.

Gorman puffed at his side, cradling a jammed shoulder. After a block, he stared over at Painter and asked an existential question. “Who the hell are you?”

“Just your everyday civil servant,” Painter muttered while concentrating on another task. He resecured the throat mike to his neck and activated it. “Monk, how are you doing over there?”

Monk heard a few frazzled words in his ear, but after knocking loose his respirator, he fought a mouthful of foam. He shoved against the door, hoping it would miraculously open. It must have locked down once the foam had been triggered.

Maybe there was another way out.

Before he could move, hot water blasted from above. The foam immediately melted from the top down. The sheer volume of it collapsed in on itself. It took less than thirty seconds.

Monk glanced over at Creed. He stood there like a skinny wet dog waiting to shake. The man’s eyes were bright with shock.

“Biohazard foam,” Monk explained. “Used as a knockdown agent for airborne pathogens. We should be okay.”

Proving that, the lock clicked open at Monk’s elbow. It must have been timed to the sterilization cycle. He twisted the handle and exited into the hall.

As he stepped free, voices echoed down the hall. He had a clear view to the elevator lobby. The door stood half open as someone argued in Norwegian out in the lobby. Monk recognized the uniformed arm of a security guard.

The automated safety protocol had summoned security.

Monk froze. He couldn’t retreat back into the mushroom lab. That would surely be the first place they’d check. He had only one other option. Stepping into plain view, he hurried across the hall and placed his palm on the reader beside the other door. He held his breath as it scanned, watching the far door, praying that no one turned around.

Finally, the lock freed. With a silent sigh of thanks, he shoved the door open. He and Creed rushed inside.

Monk kept the door cracked open enough to watch the hallway.

A team of security guards, four in total, were led by a technician in a lab coat. The man looked like he had just woken up. Apparently access here required a certain level of clearance.

Monk allowed the door to slip closed, though he remained crouched where he could listen. The other lab door opened and closed. Men remained out in the hall. Monk heard them talking in low voices. He didn’t know how many. At least three, he guessed.

Now what?

“Make some room,” Creed said behind him.

Monk turned. His partner had shed his parka and donned his lab coat. He’d also dried his hair and finger-combed it roughly in place. Creed stepped into the anteroom. While Monk had been manning the door, his partner had gone into the larger room with the glass-walled apiaries.

“What are you doing?” Monk asked, eyeing him up and down.

Creed moved aside. Beyond the closed inner door, a stir of movement drew Monk’s eye. In the outer room, a thin cloud of bees swirled and gathered.

“What did you do?” Monk asked.

Creed lifted an arm. In his hand, he held a meshed drawer. “I stole the queen.” Creed pointed to the left. “And I broke the hive seal.”

Monk frowned. From one of the apiaries, a thick column of bees boiled out where the drawer used to be.

“But why?” Monk asked.

Beyond the door, the bees gathered into a growing swarm.

“They’re definitely Africanized,” Creed said as he eyeballed his captured queen. “Very aggressive.”

“That’s great, but again—why?”

“To get us out of here.” Creed pointed to the anteroom’s inner door. “Open it when I say now. But keep behind the door.”

Monk began to understand. He switched places with Creed and moved to the anteroom’s inner door. Creed took his post by the hallway door and watched the gathering swarm of bees.

The cloud now hugged against the anteroom’s glass door and walls, drawn by their queen’s trail. Buzzing grew so loud it made Monk’s skin crawl.

Creed continued to wait. He placed the drawer with the queen on the floor. In the other room the swarm grew so thick that it blocked the light.

“Be ready,” Creed said as he straightened back up.

Monk grabbed the handle of his door.

With a final swipe through his hair, Creed faced the door and pulled it open. Monk was blocked from view, but he heard the startled outbursts of the security guards out in the hallway.

Creed put on an air of irritation and snapped at them in Norwegian.

As the guards struggled to decide if the new technician was a threat or not, Creed kicked the drawer across the floor toward the guards.

“Now!” he yelled.

Monk yanked his door open and crowded behind it.

The swarm immediately swept into the anteroom like an angry fist.

Creed dropped back and dragged his door fully open. With the way clear to their queen, the hive shot into the hall in a thick cloud. Panicked, one of the guards fired a wild shot.

A mistake.

Monk knew enough about Africanized bees to know they were sensitive to loud noises.

Screams followed, which only made matters worse.

Creed lunged over and grabbed the sleeve of Monk’s jacket. Time to go. Monk followed Creed out the door. There was no need for stealth. Four guards writhed in the center of the swarm, covered thickly in a stinging mass. The bees filled mouths and crawled up noses.

Monk and Creed sprinted down the hall.

A few ambitious bees gave chase. Monk got stung several times, but the swarm remained close to their queen. With his long legs, Creed reached the door to the elevator lobby first. He pounded through. Monk slammed the door closed behind him.

Creed called the elevator, and the doors glided apart immediately. The cage was still on this level. They hurried inside. With no time to reach the servers, Monk abandoned their primary mission and pressed the lobby button. It was time to get out of here. Creed didn’t argue.

Monk stared over at him as the elevator climbed.

“You did good, Doogie.”

“Really?” He scowled sourly. “I’m still Doogie?”

Monk shrugged as they exited the elevator and hurried across the front foyer. He didn’t want the kid’s success to go to his head. As they headed back out into the night, a voice suddenly whispered in his ear, angry and urgent.

“Monk, report in.” It was Painter.

Monk thumbed his throat mike. “Sir, we’re heading out now.”

A heavy sigh of relief followed. “And the mission?”

“We ran into a little trouble with bees.”

“Bees?”

“I’ll explain later. Should we rendezvous back at the hotel?”

“No. I’m headed your way now. I’ve got company with me.”

Company?

“There’s been a change in plans,” Painter said. “Things have gotten a little too hot here in Oslo. So we’re pulling up stakes and moving somewhere a little colder.”

Still soaking wet from the foamy shower, Monk felt the ice-cold night cut down to his bones. Colder than this?

As Monk headed across the corporate campus, he pictured Gray nestled in a warm cabin, a fire blazing in a camp stove.

Lucky bastard.

16
October 13, 12:22 A.M.
Lake District, England

As the forest burned, Gray clutched the lead rope of his stallion. He and the others had quickly saddled the ponies. They didn’t have a moment to spare.

After the initial firestorm, the flames had died down to hellish glows all around them. A pall of thick smoke covered the valley, dimming the stars. A single blaze marked a section of the woods that had caught fire. Likely an old deadfall, dry and ready to burn. The rest of the snowy forest had resisted the flames so far.

But they were far from safe.

“Mount up!” he called to the others.

They had to move now. Every second counted as a more insidious danger closed around them. Peat fires traveled underground, spreading outward in smoldering channels and deeper fiery pits. Though the woods were dark, they hid a raging conflagration below.

Wallace had estimated that the entire valley would be consumed in less than an hour. No rescue could reach them in time. Gray had used his satellite phone to contact Painter, to briefly explain their situation and pass on their GPS coordinates, but even the director had agreed that air support could not be mobilized in time to reach them.

They were on their own.

As Gray climbed into the saddle, one of the massive stones in the ring toppled over as the peat beneath it burned and gave way. As it struck, a spate of flames erupted from the dark soil. Other stones had already fallen, some vanished completely into fiery pits.

This was no natural peat fire.

Someone had torched the place, plainly meaning to destroy the excavation site—and anyone here.

Rachel walked her pony next to Gray, keeping a firm grip on her reins. Her mount’s eyes rolled white, on the edge of panic. Rachel looked no less scared.

They all knew the danger.

As the fires had erupted, one of the ponies had broken out of the paddock. Wild and tossing its head, it had fled into the forest. Moments later, they heard a crash, a fresh blaze of flames erupted, and a horrible screaming followed.

Gray glanced over at the toppled stone as it slowly sank into the fiery mire, reminding him of the danger beneath their feet. Any misstep and they’d end up like the panicked pony.

Seichan hurried over to Gray’s stallion’s side. It was her mount that had fled and died. Gray leaned down, grabbed her forearm, and hauled her up into the saddle behind him.

“Let’s go!” He pointed toward the darkest section of the forest, where there were no glows at the moment. They had to break through the ring of fire and get up into the hills.

Gray led the way with Wallace at his side.

Ahead of them trotted the terrier, Rufus.

“He’ll find us a safe route,” the professor said, his face ashen. “Peat burns most ripe. His nose may pick up what we can’t see.”

Gray hoped he was right, but the entire valley reeked of burning peat. It was a slim chance the dog could nose out the subtle seep of smoke from the subterranean fires. But what other course did they have?

And maybe the dog did sense something. As they headed out, the terrier’s path switchbacked through the woods, with sudden stops and turns.

Gray kept their pace to a slow trot, balancing speed and caution. The dog bounded through the snow and across an icy stream. It seemed impossible that on a night so cold, with the ground mantled in snow and ice, there could be a hellish inferno below.

But they were reminded of just that danger as a red deer leaped past their trail, frightened by the fires. It flew sure-footedly through the trees, then bounded into a snow-filled gully. The ground gave way beneath it. Its hindquarters dropped into a fiery pit, casting up a swirl of flames and burning ash. Its neck stretched in a silent posture of agony, then its body went limp and fell the rest of the way out of sight. Smoke roiled upward. A wash of heat chased back the chill of the night.

It was a sobering lesson.

“Christ on a spit,” Kowalski mumbled atop his pony.

Seichan’s arms tightened around Gray’s waist.

As they continued through the smoky woods, new blazes grew throughout the forest as the spreading inferno lit dead trees into torches. They gave one such tree a wide berth. It was an old oak, brittle and lightning-struck. The flames danced through its white branches, a warning of the danger flowing under its roots.

Even Rufus began to slow. He would stop often, his head swiveling, nose in the air, whining, plainly less sure. But he kept them moving, sometimes having to backtrack, dancing straight through the legs of their skittish mounts.

Finally, though, he came to a complete standstill. It was at an old dry riverbed, a shallow declivity that wound across the way ahead. There didn’t appear to be any threat, but the dog sidled back and forth across the nearest bank. He made one tentative move down into the channel, then thought better of it and retreated. Something was spooking him. He returned to the head of their stalled line of ponies. His low whine turned into a fearful whimper.

Shifting in his saddle, Gray stared into the woods. All around them the wildfire below had begun to crest to the surface, showing its true fiery face. Not far off, a large pine toppled into the forest, taking smaller trees with it. It crashed with a spiraling wash of flames. More and more of the woods was suffering the same fate. Whole sections were now collapsing into the burning bog, either knocked to the ground as their roots were burned away or felled by their sheer weight as the ground itself turned to fiery ash.

They had to keep moving. The longer they waited, the worse their circumstances. They needed to reach the hills.

“C’mon, you old cur,” Wallace urged his dog in a gentle admonishment. “You can do it, Rufus. C’mon, boy. Find us a way home.”

The dog stared up at his master, then down at the gully. With a tremble, he sat down. He continued to shake, but his judgment was firm. There was no safe way forward.

Gray slid out of his saddle and passed his reins to Seichan. “Stay here.”

“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.

Gray crossed to a mossy stone beside their trail. He had to know for sure. Bending at the knees, he hauled the rock free and lumbered to the edge of the snowy riverbed. With a swing of his arms, he heaved the stone in a low arc over the bank. It landed in the middle of the gully—and crashed through to the fiery bog below. Flames spat up. Snow melted around the edges and boiled back up with a hiss of steam.

The hole immediately grew larger, sending out blazing tendrils. Other spots erupted along the channel. Tossing the boulder had been like throwing a stone in a pond. Fiery ripples spread outward in a cascading effect as fresh oxygen reached the buried inferno. Flames spat, and more steam rose. It spread outward, following the course of the old riverbed.

“You had to do that,” Kowalski said. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

Gray ignored him and stepped to another stone. He dragged it up, and using his entire body, he swung and tossed the rock to the other bank. It was less than eight yards across. The stone struck the far bank and landed with a dull thud. It sat imbedded in turf and snow.

“It’s still solid over there. If we can reach the other side …” Gray turned to Wallace. “How good are these Fell Ponies at jumping?”

The professor eyed the fiery course. “They’re good,” he said hesitantly. “But that’s still a bloody long leap.”

Kowalski added his assessment. “Not like we have much choice.”

Another tree crashed deeper in the woods behind them. “Aye, that’s true,” Wallace said.

“I’ll go first.” Gray hurried back to his mount. He raised an arm toward Seichan to help her down.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“No. Our weight will only make it harder to—”

“Do you see any free horses running around here?” Seichan snapped back, cutting him off. “I have to ride double with someone. And your stallion’s the biggest.”

Gray realized she was right.

He pulled up into the saddle. The others cleared to the side as he backed the horse a good distance away from the bank. “Hold tight,” Gray said.

She obeyed, hugging her arms and pressing her cheek against his back. “Go,” she whispered.

Tilting forward in the saddle, he kicked back and gave the reins a crack. The stallion, already bunched, as if knowing what its rider wanted, shot forward with a thunder of hooves. It accelerated into a full gallop within only a few strides.

Gray felt the power of the stallion through the saddle. Its heaving breath streamed white behind them. Its neck stretched as it gained even more speed—then hit the bank.

With a surge of muscle, it leaped high. Gray went weightless, lifting from the saddle with Seichan strapped tightly to him. They crested the fires. He felt the wash of heat from below.

Then they struck the far bank.

Gray slammed back into the saddle, catching his weight with both stirrup and skill. The stallion trotted a few paces to wean away momentum. Gray pulled on the reins and quickly turned his mount.

Seichan still clung hard against him.

He returned to the fiery riverbed and heaved out a sigh of relief. He waved an arm for the others to follow, not yet trusting his voice. A shudder passed through him, but Seichan’s arms held tightly.

“We made it,” she mumbled to his back.

The others quickly followed. Wallace came flying over with Rufus clutched in his lap. Gray had to give the old guy credit. He could definitely ride.

Rachel came next. She backed her horse and made a smooth run for the river. Gray might have the largest pony, but Rachel had the fastest. It hit the bank, but something went wrong.

One hoof slipped as the edge crumpled beneath it.

Gray knew immediately there was trouble. The jump was too low, the pony’s body turned to the side.

They would never make the far side.

Rachel fought to keep her seat. As the mare leaped, she immediately felt the center of gravity shift under her. She clenched her legs to keep in her saddle. She pulled the reins close to her chest and leaned hard over the saddle’s pommel.

Twisted askew, she stared straight down into the fiery heart of the wildfire. She wasn’t going to make it. The pony was already dropping. Searing heat bathed her.

She heard cries of alarm.

Then they hit the ground. The front hooves struck solid turf, reaching the far bank, but the mare’s hind end crashed into the smoldering edge of the river of fire.

The impact threw Rachel flat on her stomach atop the pony. With the wind knocked out of her, she lost the reins and her footing and slid backward toward the fire.

Beneath her, the poor mare screamed in agony and fought to kick herself free, which only stirred the flames higher.

As she slid, Rachel caught the edge of the saddle. Fire burned the soles of her boots. The bucking mare, frenzied by agony, threatened to throw her off. Worse, the mare began to roll.

“Hold on!” a voice screamed.

She glanced up. It was Seichan. The woman dove forward and grabbed the mare’s lead. Gray came up on the other side and tried to get hold of the halter’s crownpiece.

Together, they fought to keep the mare from rolling.

Seichan wrapped the lead in her arms, dropped to her backside, and dug in her heels. Gray lost hold of the halter as the mare thrashed its head and screamed. He made another lunge for it.

“Just get her!” Seichan yelled as she was dragged toward the river herself.

It took all of Rachel’s strength to keep her grip. She felt her legs burning, pictured her pants on fire. Then fingers clamped on her wrist. Gray was suddenly there, sprawled across the mare’s withers. He yanked her forward with one arm, his other braced on the saddle’s pommel. He hauled her up to his chest, his face red and strained.

“Climb over me!” he ordered her, staring straight at her.

The iron resolve of those steel-blue eyes hardened through her.

Gasping, she reached up and clutched a fistful of his coat. She pulled herself atop him, reached to his belt with her other hand, and crawled over him. At last she cleared the river’s edge and rolled off him to land on her hands and knees in the snow.

Gray scrambled back, dropped next to her, then scooped her under one arm and half-carried her up the bank. They collapsed together into the snow. She hugged him, suddenly sobbing.

Behind her, a gunshot blasted.

Jerking around, she saw Seichan standing below, her back to them. She held a smoking pistol. The screams of the mare ended as its body collapsed to the ground and slid farther into the fire.

Seichan sank to the snowy bank, cradling her pistol.

Great.

Still on the other side of the fiery river, Kowalski had watched Rachel’s mare stumble. Her pony still burned at the river’s edge. How was he going to make it across? His mount, a gelding, was not as tall as Gray’s stallion and not half as fast as Rachel’s mare. Plus his pony had no balls, which already made him edgy.

Kowalski held a hand to his stomach. He really should have gone on that diet Liz was pushing.

Gray called from the other side. “What are you waiting for?”

Kowalski lifted one of his fingers at Gray. He patted his pony’s neck. “You can do this … right?”

His pony tossed its head and rolled a scared eyeball at him.

Right there with you, bud.

He backed his pony, going a little farther, giving himself more of a running start. Still, he hesitated. The pony did, too. It refused to set, dancing its hooves nervously. They both had as much to lose.

We just have to calm ourselves, take a moment to collect—

A pine exploded directly behind them. It went off like a Roman candle. Flaming debris blew high, pelted the back of his coat, and struck the pony’s rump.

Given a fiery kick, the gelding took off with a surge of adrenaline-driven muscle. Kowalski came close to falling but quickly regained his balance, riding high in the stirrups. The pony thundered under him, hit the bank, and went airborne.

If Kowalski were braver, he would have whooped. Or if he had a cowboy hat, he might’ve waved it. Instead, he leaned down and clung tightly to his gelding with both arms.

Below, as if knowing the last of them were escaping, the entire creekbed collapsed into an inferno of fire. Flames shot upward around them.

Kowalski squeezed his eyes shut, bathed in searing heat.

Then they hit the far side with a crash of hooves on solid ground. The impact threw him over his pony’s head. He went flying and landed in a snowbank. He lay on his back for a stunned breath and took inventory.

Still alive…

He pushed up to his elbows and gained his feet. He staggered over to his mount, both their legs still trembling. Once at the gelding’s side, he threw his arms around its neck and hugged tightly.

“Freakin’ love you, you ball-less wonder.”

*  *  *

Twenty minutes later, the exhausted team climbed a rocky path out of the valley. Flames danced their shadows across the slope. Below, the entire valley smoldered and burned.

Seichan, aching and bone-tired, rode behind Kowalski. She stared over at Gray and Rachel. They rode together atop his stallion. Rachel had her arms around Gray’s waist, her head on his shoulder. After the near-fatal fall, she had stayed close to Gray, drawing off his solidity and strength.

Seichan tried not to sneer at her vulnerability.

But she could not so easily dismiss another pang.

She took note of how quickly the two melded together, how easily they became one. While riding double with him earlier, she had also held Gray, smelled the musk of his sweat, felt the heat of his body. But she had felt nothing more from him. She might as well have been a saddlebag.

Yet even now, as she watched them, Gray rubbed a palm along Rachel’s arm. It was a comforting gesture, done reflexively, as he continued to keep an eye on their rocky trail.

Seichan turned away, anger building. Not at Gray, but at her own foolishness. She remembered Kowalski’s words to her before the forest exploded. Two schoolkids with the hots for each other. She had thought she’d kept her feelings hidden better than that. But what about the man’s assessment of his partner? Could he be right about Gray?

She allowed herself a moment to believe it to be true. But only a moment. She stared over at him and recognized there could be no future between them. The gulf was too deep and too wide.

And it would only grow deeper and wider.

Especially with what must happen next.

Free of the woods, it was time she moved her plan to the next level.

2:07 A.M.

Gray called for a halt so they could rest and water the horses. They had reached an ice-blue tarn, one of many that dotted the region like droplets of quicksilver.

He also wanted to check on Rachel’s burns. He had packed her lower legs with snow immediately after her mishap to draw off any residual heat. Her skin had been bright pink and a couple of spots might shallowly blister, but he wanted to double-check.

The group slipped off their ponies. They were all saddle-sore and burned crisp around the edges. Even after clearing the fiery river, it had been a close call.

If it hadn’t been for Rufus leading us the rest of the way out…

Gray watched the professor fish out a piece of dried sausage and feed it to his terrier. Rufus deserved heaping platters of sausages. Still, the terrier was more than happy to get a good scratch for a job well done.

Wallace leaned down and scrubbed his fingers along the dog’s side.

“Good boy, you mangy mutt.”

His tail wagged furiously.

Even Seichan tossed Rufus a crumble of cheese as she stretched her legs. The terrier caught it deftly. He seemed to have gotten over his initial distrust of her. She wandered down to the icy tarn and stood limned by the moonlight reflecting off the water.

Gray studied her.

Back when Rachel had come close to falling into the flames, Seichan had been the first out of the saddle, racing to her aid. Even Gray was a half step behind her. He had never properly thanked her for her help.

But first he had some details to attend to.

Kowalski had started a small fire with some twigs and matches. Despite all that had happened, the night was cold and a fire was still welcome. Everyone headed toward it like weary moths to a flame.

Gray took a moment to warm his hands. Then, with a sigh, he shrugged off his pack and dropped to his haunches. He unzippered a flap and slipped out his satellite phone.

“Calling home?” Kowalski asked.

“Have to update Painter. Let him know we escaped that hellhole.” As Gray lifted the phone, Seichan spoke behind him. “I don’t think so.” He turned to find her pointing a gun at his face.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Toss me your phone.

“Seichan…”

“Do it.”

Gray realized the futility of resisting. He knew how well this woman could shoot. He flipped the phone over to her. She caught it smoothly, her pistol never wavering, then lobbed the phone underhanded into the lake.

“Time for all of us to drop off the grid,” she said.

Gray could guess what she meant. If he never reported in, Painter would think they’d never made it out of the burning forest. It would take searchers weeks to sift through the ashes.

But what Gray still couldn’t understand was why.

The question must have been plain to read.

Seichan explained. “Our goal is to find the key Father Giovanni was hunting. In the past, you’ve proved quite capable, Pierce.” She lifted an eyebrow toward Gray. “The Guild has full confidence in you.”

Gray shook his head, kicking himself. He had suspected she might use these events to her advantage, to help her return to the good graces of her former masters—whether truly or as a double agent. Either way, he had thought she’d make her move later. He had let his guard down. But in truth, it was more than that. Fury built in him. A part of him had trusted her.

He let some of that anger show. “How are you going to get us to cooperate? You can’t hold a gun against us the whole time.”

“That’s true.” She holstered her pistol.

The move made Gray even more worried. Her next words confirmed his fear.

“That’s why I poisoned Rachel.”

Shock silenced Gray.

Rachel stepped forward. “What?”

“In the tea.” Seichan didn’t even look at her. She kept her focus on Gray. “A designer biotoxin. Kills in three days. Unfortunately, symptoms will progress. Nausea, headaches, eventually the bleeding will start.”

Rachel stammered for a moment, clearly fighting her disbelief. “But you saved my life. Out in the woods.”

Gray understood. “She needed you alive.”

Seichan shrugged. “There is an antidote. An enzyme specifically designed for this toxin. A lock and key, you might say. There is no other cure. And just to be clear, I don’t know what the antidote is, where it might be found, or how to obtain it. You’ll be given the antidote only when you hand over the key.”

“I don’t understand. What key are you even talking about?”

“The item Father Giovanni was truly searching for. The key to the Doomsday Book.”

Wallace jolted with her words. “That’s just a myth.”

“For Rachel’s sake, you’d better hope it’s not. We have three days to find it.”

“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Gray asked.

She rolled her eyes at his question. “Do I really have to answer that?”

Gray scowled back at her. She was right. She didn’t. There was no guarantee, and no need to offer one. With Rachel’s life in the balance, they had no choice.

Kowalski folded his arms and glared over at Gray. “Next time, Pierce, listen to the dog.”

17
October 13, 3:23 A.M.
Oslo, Norway

Krista had not slept.

It had been a long night, with events seeming to go from bad to worse. But in the final hour, perhaps all ended well. She would know in a few minutes.

She stood before a roaring fire, dressed in an Italian cashmere robe. The hearth was tall enough to walk into without stooping. Her bare toes curled into the sable rug on the floor. A bank of gothic windows, framed in iron, looked out into the snowy courtyard of Akershus Castle. Moonlight cast the world in silver, yet mirrored the fire’s flames.

And her reflection stood between them.

Between ice and fire.

A bit of poetry from Robert Frost ran through her head as she waited. She remembered memorizing it at the Catholic girls’ school outside of Boston, back when her father used to visit her at night while her mother was drunk.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.

Krista did not care which it was, as long as she was on the winning side. She returned to studying the flames, but pictured another fire. One that had almost ruined everything. She had received an update shortly after midnight from a spotter in the English fells. He had reported on the success of the implanted incendiary charges. But the fire had quickly raged out of control, threatening all. She was forced to wait another two hours before she got the confirmation that the others had escaped the woods. That the operation continued as planned.

If I had failed there…

A chill swept through her.

It would have been a disaster, especially with the way matters fared at the Grand Hotel. It had taken her too long to discover that it had been Antonio Gravel who contacted the senator, and he ended up being a more cunning target than she had anticipated. After contacting the senator, the man had vanished. He wasn’t at his hotel or at the summit. Only too late did she learn of his predilection for young hookers, those who didn’t mind a bit of rough play. Unable to find him quickly enough, she had been forced to set up an ambush at the hotel. It was more brazen than she would have liked, but she had little time for subtlety. She had also hoped to take out two birds with one shot. She had ordered her men to kill Antonio as soon as he entered the hotel, then to use the chaos and confusion to assassinate the senator.

Senator Gorman’s death had not been specifically ordered. He was only supposed to be killed if Antonio spoke to him, but Krista did not like loose ends. Especially loose ends that could recognize her. Jason Gorman, love-struck over his new girlfriend, had sent pictures to his father.

Such exposure worried her.

And she didn’t like to worry.

In the end, the senator had escaped, and not through any fault of her own. She had been explicitly instructed not to pursue the dark-haired Sigma operative. It was not her fault he had shown up.

Still, anxiety kept her tense and cold. She stayed close to the fire, the belt of her robe snugged tightly.

At last, her phone vibrated. She immediately brought it to her ear.

“I’m here,” she said.

“I understand the operation in England continues as planned.” “It does.” She let a little pride shine through.

“And Senator Gorman escaped.”

Her vision narrowed, shadowed at the corners. All her earlier confidence evaporated upon hearing the tone of the man’s voice.

“Yes,” she forced out.

Silence stretched. Krista’s heart pounded in her throat.

“Then we can proceed with the second tier of our plan.

“Krista hid a long sigh of relief, but she was also confused. “Second tier?”

“To begin cleaning house in preparation for the endgame.”

“Sir?”

“Echelon has met and reevaluated the coming scenarios. In the end, there seems little need for a continuing relationship with Viatus. We find Ivar Karlsen growing quickly into more of a liability. Especially after some strange events this past night at his research facility. His best use now is as a scapegoat, someone to draw fire away from us.”

Krista let her mind go cold, recalibrating her role.

The man continued. “We have all the pertinent research. What Ivar Karlsen has set in motion cannot be reversed and will serve us in the end, with or without him.”

“What am I to do?”

“You’ll accompany him to Svalbard as planned and await further orders. I understand he’s opted to leave earlier than expected.”

“Another storm is rolling in faster than predicted. He wants to make sure it doesn’t interrupt his plans.”

“Very wise. Because a storm is definitely brewing out there.” The man’s voice faded. “You have your orders.”

The line went dead.

Krista lowered the phone and clutched it between her palms. She shifted closer to the fire but found no warmth. She stood there unmoving, losing track of time. Her breathing grew harder.

Finally, a voice spoke behind her.

“Are you coming to bed, Krista?”

She glanced over her shoulder. Ivar Karlsen stood naked in the doorway to his bedroom. At his age, he remained solid, his belly flat, his legs strong and muscular. And more important, he needed no pill to perform.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Couldn’t be better.”

She turned fully to face him. Dropping her phone into a pocket, she undid the sash of her robe and let the garment slither off her shoulders to pile atop the fur rug. She stood with her back to the flames, all too aware of the fire, all too aware of the icy chill of the castle room.

She stood where she belonged.

Between ice and fire.

THIRD

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

18
October 13, 8:43 A.M.
Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

The sun remained low in the sky as the private jet soared over the Arctic Circle. During the late autumn months, there was little daylight where they were headed. The archipelago of Svalbard lay halfway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. With over half of its landmass buried under glaciers, it was home to little besides reindeer and polar bears.

Even Saint Nick would have a hard time calling this place home.

But for the moment, Painter enjoyed the leather and mahogany cabin of the private jet, a Citation Sovereign wangled by Kat. She also had their flight manifest altered to show that they were executives of a coal consortium. It was a decent cover. The major industry of the archipelago was coal mining.

The jet’s cabin sat seven, so there was plenty of room for the four of them to stretch out. They had all managed to get a little sleep, needing it after the long night, but they’d be landing in less than an hour at Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on the Svalbard islands.

Painter leaned back in his leather captain’s chair. He sat across a table from Senator Gorman. Monk and Creed shared a neighboring couch. It was time to lay all their respective cards on the table, to firm up the tentative game plan for the coming confrontation.

Painter knew they would have to move fast, to jump as soon as their tires hit the tarmac. They had fled Oslo knowing two things. First, that with Painter’s cover blown and the senator being hunted, the place had grown too hot. Second, that their major suspect had already abandoned the city and was headed to the same frozen islands. It was their best chance to corner Karlsen and get some real answers.

The CEO of Viatus was leading a group of summit leaders to view the famous Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It was the Noah’s Ark for seeds, meant to protect its precious cargo—over three hundred thousand seed species—against wars, pestilence, nuclear attack, earthquakes, even drastic climate changes. Designed to last for twenty thousand years, this Doomsday Vault was buried five hundred feet under a mountain, in what was considered to be the most remotely populated place on earth.

If they wanted a private conversation with Karlsen, far from prying eyes, this was the place for it. But such a meeting wasn’t without significant risk.

“Senator,” Painter pressed one last time, “I still think it might be best if you stayed in Longyearbyen. If we need you, we can pull you into the investigation.”

Painter continued to maintain the ruse that the three of them were from the office of the Inspector General, working for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. They even had the badges to prove it.

“I’m going with you,” Senator Gorman said, nursing a cup of coffee.

Painter had noted that he’d spiked it with some brandy from the stocked bar. Not that Painter blamed the guy. Gorman had taken a series of hard blows in the past few hours. He had been a close associate, bordering on friends, with Karlsen.

Gorman’s voice hardened. “If Ivar truly had a hand in the death of my son …”

“We still don’t know how much ties directly back to him,” Painter offered thinly.

The senator wasn’t buying it.

“He fucking shook my hand.” Gorman slammed a fist on the table, rattling the coffee cups and saucers. He glared across the table. Plainly the senator would not be swayed from coming. Painter could only imagine the pain of his loss, followed by such a betrayal, but at the moment Painter didn’t need someone flying off half-cocked.

Still, the man had one solid argument and stated it again. “You’ll need me to get close to Ivar.”

Painter folded his hands in his lap, recognizing the truth. Karlsen had left an hour before them, racing ahead of a storm blowing in from the pole. He would likely already be at the seed vault by the time they landed. And security there was tight, especially with the arriving dignitaries from the summit.

Senator Gorman continued. “To get inside, you’ll need both me and my ID pass. Even your badges won’t get you past security. With my invitation, I can get at least one of you into the vault.”

It had already been decided that Painter would be that one. Monk and Creed would maintain a defensive perimeter outside and offer backup.

Painter had also reviewed the security at the seed vault. The place was sealed behind steel-reinforced doors, monitored by a sophisticated video-surveillance system, not to mention patrolled by the couple of thousand polar bears that roamed the island. Additionally, for this event, a contingent of the Norwegian army would be on hand to bolster security.

So crashing this party without the senator would be as hard as cracking into Fort Knox.

Recognizing all this, Painter finally relented. He straightened in his chair and eyed everyone. “Then before we land, let’s figure out what we know—and, just as important, what we don’t. Once we hit the ground, we’ll need to jump.”

Monk nodded. “Where do we start?”

“With our primary target, Ivar Karlsen.” Painter focused on Gorman. “You’ve worked with him for years. What can you tell us about him?”

The senator leaned back, clearly trying to rein in his anger, but his expression remained black. “If you’d asked me that yesterday, I would’ve said he was a rugged, stand-up sort of guy, someone who knows how to make a buck, but also knows the responsibility behind such wealth. Sort of Rockefeller crossed with FDR.”

“And how did you first meet?”

“Through the Club of Rome. I joined simply to make political and business connections. What better way to firm up my career than to hobnob with an international group of industrialists, politicians, and celebrities.” He shrugged, shameless about his ambition. “But then I met Ivar. His passion was electric, his rhetoric compelling. He firmly and wholeheartedly believes in preserving the world, safeguarding mankind’s future. Sure, some of his suggestions for managing population growth may be extreme. Mandatory birth control, sterilization, paying families not to have children. But someone has to make those hard choices. It’s what drew me to him to begin with. His no-nonsense manner and sensibility. But I wasn’t the only one in his inner circle.”

Painter’s interest sharpened. “What do you mean?”

“Within the Club of Rome, Ivar gathered like-minded people, those who also believed tough choices were needed. We were sort of a club within the club. Each of us worked on special projects for him. Mine, like I said, was to use my political clout to expand biofuel development. But there were other projects overseen by various members of the circle.”

“Like with bees?” Monk asked, referring to the test hives he had seen in the subterranean lab. He rubbed at a stinging welt on his cheek.

The senator shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. We each ran our separate projects.”

“Then let’s talk about the project that started this whole mess,” Painter said. “Where all the bloodshed seemed to originate. It all flows back to the genetic research done at Viatus, specifically the testing of its drought-resistant corn. We know Viatus funded the research into extremophiles and that they discovered some fungal organism in the mummies preserved in the English peat.” Painter nodded to Monk. “And we know that research continues today and that those bodies found at the mushroom lab were likely from the test farm in Africa.”

Painter had already set in motion an order to search those underground labs. But Viatus was one of the largest corporations in Norway, with massive global and financial ties. By the time some judge okayed a search, Painter suspected that the corporation would have purged those labs, leaving behind only sterilized, empty rooms.

“So I think it’s safe to conclude,” Painter finished, “that the mysterious genes noted in the corn seeds by Professor Malloy at Princeton were from that fungal source. And that apparently those genes are unstable. Possibly making the corn dangerous to consume.”

Gorman shook his head. “But why massacre the village? The corn wasn’t even meant for human consumption.”

Painter had one explanation. “It was a refugee camp. Food was scarce. Hungry people get desperate. I wager some locals sneaked into the fields at night and stole an ear or two of corn for their families. And maybe those who were running the farm turned a blind eye to such trespasses. It would offer the corporation the perfect chance to conduct real-world human studies without needing to acknowledge it.”

“Only no one anticipated the gene altering itself,” Monk said with a grimace. “After learning that, they had to wipe the slate clean, but not before collecting a few test subjects along the way. Who would miss a refugee or two, especially in a firebombed camp?”

Painter noted that the senator had grown pale, that his gaze had slipped into a thousand-yard stare. Grief shadowed his eyes. But it was more than that.

“Viatus is already shipping their new drought-resistant corn seed,” Gorman said. “They have been for the past week. Fields are already being planted for the season across much of the southern hemisphere and equatorial latitudes. Millions of acres.”

Painter sensed something worse coming. Gorman had gone pale. It suddenly struck Painter. To mass-produce the seed for global distribution, Viatus had to have already grown it somewhere and harvested it.

But where?

“The production fields for this new corn seed,” Painter asked. “Where are they?”

Gorman would not meet his eye. “I helped broker the deal for Viatus. GM seed production is a billion-dollar-a-year industry. It’s like pouring money into cash-strapped areas.” His voice went dull with shock. “I spread the money out. Throughout the U.S. corn belt—Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan … thousands and thousands of acres, in a patchwork across the Midwest.”

“And this is the same corn that they were testing in Africa?” Monk asked.

“Not exactly, but it was in the same genetic line.”

“And probably just as unstable,” Painter added. “No wonder they burned down that test farm in Africa. The cat was already out of the bag.”

“But I don’t understand,” Monk said. “How could that seed already be planted? What about safety studies?”

Gorman shook his head. “Safety studies on genetically modified foods are a joke. Food additives get more testing. GM foods have no formal risk assessment guidelines and rely mostly on self-regulation. Approvals are based on filtered or outright fraudulent reports by the industry. To give you some idea, of the forty GM crops approved last year, only eight have published safety studies. And in the case of the seeds being shipped by Viatus, they are not meant for human consumption, so they’re even less on any agency’s radar. And besides … I helped push it through.”

The senator closed his eyes and shook his head.

No wonder Karlsen needed him, Painter thought.

“Still, if the corn’s not meant for human consumption,” Monk said, “maybe the danger can be contained.”

Creed finally spoke up and quickly quashed this hope. “It will still get into the human food supply.”

All eyes turned to him.

The newest member of Sigma seemed to shrink a little under their combined attention, but he held up. “After what happened in Princeton, I looked a little deeper into GM crops. In 2000, a GM corn called StarLink, a corn not approved for human consumption like the Viatus strain, ended up contaminating food products across the country. More than three hundred brands. It was suspected of triggering allergic reactions and resulted in a massive recall. The Kellogg Company had to close its production line for two weeks just to clean out the contamination.”

The senator nodded. “I remember. The government had to buy up Kellogg stock to keep the industry afloat. Cost us billions.”

“And that was only one of many such reports of foreign GM products ending up in the human food supply.” Creed glanced over at Painter. “There remains a much larger concern about all this.”

“What’s that?”

“Pollen migration and genetic contamination.”

Frowning, Painter waved for him to explain in more depth.

“There is no way to contain pollen movement of a GM crop. It blows in the wind, gets washed into neighboring fields. Some seeds have been found growing as far away as thirty miles from a planting. So don’t be fooled. Wherever fields are planted with the Viatus corn, it will spread from there.”

“And genetic contamination?”

“Even more concerning. There have been cases of genetic modifications passing from engineered species into wild ones, spreading the contamination at the genetic level into the biosphere. And with the instability noted by Dr. Malloy in the Viatus corn sample, I think that likelihood is even greater.”

“So what you’re saying is that the whole Midwest could be contaminated?” Monk asked.

“It’s too soon to say that,” Painter said. “Not until we have more answers.”

Still, Painter remembered what Gray had discovered in England. The mummies in the peat bog had been riddled with mushrooms, just like the bodies found at the lab. Had Karlsen unwittingly unleashed that organism back into the world?

Worse, what if it wasn’t an accident?

Karlsen had clearly manipulated the senator to his own ends. But what was his goal in all of this?

Only one man could answer that.

The pilot interrupted. “We’ve begun our descent into Longyearbyen. Please secure your seats for landing.”

Painter glanced out the window as the sun finally began to rise. It was high time he had a conversation with that man. Still, he checked his watch. He had one other concern as the jet dipped toward the frozen archipelago, one that grew more worrisome with each passing hour.

11:01 A.M.

Spitsbergen, Norway

“Still no word from Gray?” Monk asked as he stood in the icy parking lot. He wore a snowsuit, boots, gloves, goggles, and carried a helmet under one arm.

Painter shook his head, clutching his satellite phone. “I had hoped by sunrise to have heard something from him. Or from the patrols. They had choppers up at first light, searching the highlands. Fire crews report the entire valley is a smoldering ruin. I also checked with Kat. He’s not checked in with Sigma Command either.”

Monk read the pain in the director’s face. “He had to make it out of there. Maybe there’s a reason he’s gone silent.”

From his expression, Painter took little consolation from Monk’s words. If Gray had gone silent, it was because he was in some sort of trouble. The director stared off into the distance.

The sun still hung low on the horizon, reflecting painfully off the ice and snow that covered the island of Spitsbergen. In another month the archipelago would sink into a permanent Arctic night that would last four months. Even at midday the temperature had climbed to only a single degree Fahrenheit above zero. It was a barren place, treeless and broken into sharp peaks and crevices. The name of this island of the Svalbard archipelago—Spitsbergen—translated from the Dutch meant “jagged mountain.”

It was not a landscape that inspired hope.

Especially with the dark skies rolling in from the north.

“There’s nothing more we can do at our end,” Painter finally said, his voice firming again. “I have Kat continuing to monitor reports from both the fire crews and the search-and-rescue teams. She’ll do what she can to coordinate a wider search. Until then, we have our own objective here.”

Painter stood next to the Volvo SUV he had driven from the airport. Monk had followed in a second vehicle, hauling a trailer behind it. Creed was back there now freeing the two snowmobiles. They’d rented the pair of Lynx V-800 snow machines from a travel service that offered winter safaris into the wilds of the archipelago. The travel agency’s logos were painted brightly on their sides.

Inside the Volvo, Senator Gorman sat in the passenger seat. The plan was for the senator and Painter to head directly to the Svalbard seed vault. Monk and Creed would take a more circuitous route overland by snowmobile. The pair would get as close as possible to the vault without raising suspicions, which was the primary reason for the rentals.

According to the tour operator, his company regularly led overnight tours into the mountains to view the wildlife that inhabited the place. But since the construction of the Doomsday Vault, the well-publicized site had become a frequent tourist stop. Their presence should not warrant a second look. Monk and Creed would be ready in case further firepower was needed or a fast evacuation was necessary.

“A back door out of the bank vault,” as Painter described it.

The roar of an engine erupted from behind their tow vehicle.

“Let’s get moving,” Painter ordered. He clapped Monk’s forearm in a warm grip. “Stay safe.”

“You, too.”

The two men headed in opposite directions. Painter climbed back into his SUV; Monk joined his partner by the two snowmobiles. Creed sat atop one, outfitted like Monk in a snowsuit and helmet.

Monk crossed to his machine and hiked a leg over it.

As Painter spun out of the parking lot, Monk checked the assault rifle secured beside his seat. Creed had a matching weapon. They didn’t bother hiding the guns. Here in Spitsbergen, where polar bears outnumbered humans, such firepower was a requirement. Even the glossy tourist brochure Monk had picked up at the rental agency had stated, “Always carry a weapon when traveling outside the settlements.”

And Monk was not about to break Norwegian law.

“Ready?” he yelled, lifting an arm toward Creed.

His partner revved his engine as answer.

Donning his helmet, Monk twisted his ignition key. The beast roared to life beneath him. Throttling up, Monk edged his snowmobile toward the snowy valley beyond the lot. His machine’s rear track bit into the ice with a sure grip. The pair of skis glided smoothly as he dipped over the edge and sped down into powder.

Creed followed in his tracks.

Ahead rose the mountain of Plataberget, home to the Doomsday Vault. Its jagged peak scratched into a lowering sky. Behind it, the world was nothing but dark clouds.

Definitely an ominous place.

Especially as Monk recalled the final warning printed in that tourist brochure. It pretty much summarized this harsh land. Shoot to kill.

11:48 A.M.

Painter parked his vehicle in the designated slot. They had to pass through two barricades manned by Norwegian military guardsmen on the only road up the mountainside. Other trucks and a large bus already occupied the small parking lot, likely the transportation used by the World Food Summit contingent.

As Painter climbed out of the heated SUV into the icy cold, he also noted a minibus-sized snow vehicle resting on massive treads like a tank. It was a Hagglunds, the official vehicle for exploring Antarctica, painted with the Norwegian flag and army insignia. A couple of soldiers stood near the vehicle, smoking. There was also a smaller two-man Sno-Cat, similarly marked, patrolling the perimeter. Though at the moment, judging by the way it careened and wheeled around out there, someone was doing a little joyriding with it.

Senator Gorman, bundled in a parka, joined Painter and they headed toward the entrance to the seed vault. The only section of the installation that was aboveground was a concrete bunker. It stuck out of the snow at an angle, like the prow of a ship encased in ice. And maybe in some ways it was. Buried below was the Noah’s Ark for seeds.

The entrance towered thirty feet, a flat concrete surface decorated at the top with a windowlike plate of mirrors and prisms lit by turquoise fiber optics. It glowed in the darkening day. Already the storm clouds were rolling over the mountain, pressing the sky down on them. A gust of wind kicked up a whirlwind of ice crystals and stinging snow.

Hunched against the cold and wind, they hurried toward the entrance.

Crossing a small bridge, they reached the outer blast doors that sealed the facility. Another pair of armed guards checked the senator’s pass and logged in their identification.

“You are very late,” one of the guards said in halting English.

“Trouble with our flight,” Gorman answered. He grinned good-naturedly at the young guard and shivered against the cold. “Even way up here, airlines still somehow lose your bags. And the cold … brr … I don’t know how you can stand it out here. You’re made of heartier stuff than me.”

The soldier matched Gorman’s big grin, as did his partner, who probably didn’t even speak English. The senator just had that way about him. Painter had to hand it to him—the guy had charisma. He could turn it on or off like a flashlight. It was no wonder he was so successful in Washington.

The door was hauled open for them. Painter knew that three massive locks secured the vault. As an additional safeguard against malicious attacks, no single person on the planet had all three keys.

Once they were through the doors, the winds cut off, which was welcome, but the air inside was no warmer. Kept at a near constant zero degrees Fahrenheit, it was like stepping into a walk-in freezer.

Down a short ramp, a long circular tunnel stretched, large enough to accommodate a subway train. Underfoot lay cement slabs; overhead ran rows of fluorescent lights and an open lattice of pipes and utility conduits. The walls—steel-reinforced concrete blown with fiberglass—were roughly textured, giving the place a cavelike appearance.

Painter had studied the schematics for the facility. The layout was simple. The tunnel descended five hundred feet and ended at three massive seed vaults, each sealed by its own air lock. The only other feature was a set of office rooms down by the vaults.

Voices echoed up to them. Brighter lights glowed far ahead.

As they walked down the tunnel, Senator Gorman spoke softly and waved an arm at the walls. “Ivar was one of the major financiers for the vault here. He firmly believed in preserving the natural biodiversity of the world and judged all other such seed banks to be inadequate or half-assed.”

“I get that about him. Man likes to be in control.”

“But in this case, he’s probably right. There are over a thousand seed vaults scattered around the world, but a majority of them are threatened. The national seed bank in Iraq was looted and destroyed. In Afghanistan, it was the same. The Taliban broke into their storehouse, not for the seeds, but to steal the plastic containers. And other seed banks are just as fragile. Poor management, suffering economies, failing equipment, all threaten these depositories. But most of all it was a lack of vision.”

“And Karlsen stepped in?”

“The vault was the brainchild of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. But when Ivar heard about the project, he added his full support—both financially and vocally.” The senator rubbed his temples with his gloved fingertips. “I still can’t balance that man with the monster he seems to be. It makes no sense.”

They continued in silence. Painter had heard the trace of doubt in Gorman’s voice. After the initial shock of betrayal, skepticism had begun to creep back. It was human nature. No one wanted to believe the worst of their best friend or to face their own gullibility and blindness.

Ahead, a group of people massed near the end of the tunnel. The gathering rang with a party atmosphere. Along one wall stood a row of ice sculptures, lit from below to a stunning brilliance: a polar bear, a walrus, a model of the mountain, even the symbol for Viatus. On the other side stood a cold buffet and a steaming coffee bar.

Gorman plucked a champagne flute from a passing hostess. She was dressed in mukluks and a heavy coat. At this event, the parka was the equivalent of a black tie. Two dozen bundled guests crowded the tunnel, but from the number of servers and piles of untouched food, attendance was lower than expected.

Painter knew that the attack at the Grand Hotel—blamed on terrorists—had scared away several of the attendees.

Still, for a party just a hop, skip, and jump from the North Pole, it was a smashing success. At a microphone, a familiar figure was in midspeech. Reynard Boutha, copresident of the Club of Rome, spoke at length about the importance of preserving biodiversity.

“We are in the midst of a genetic Chernobyl. A hundred years ago, the number of varieties of apples cultivated in the United States stood at over seven thousand. Today, it’s down to three hundred. Beans numbered almost seven hundred. Now it’s down to thirty. Seventy-five percent of the world’s biodiversity has vanished in just one century. And every day another species goes extinct. We must act now to preserve what we can before it’s lost forever. That’s why the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is so important, why we must continue to raise money and awareness …”

As Boutha continued, Painter spotted Karlsen across the crowd. He was flanked by two women. One was svelte and tall with long blond hair, her face mostly hidden within the hood of her parka. The other woman was older and bent Karlsen’s ear as Boutha spoke.

“Who’s that?” Painter asked, indicating the woman speaking to Karlsen.

“She’s the former president of Rockefeller’s Population Council and another member of Ivar’s inner circle. They’ve been friends for years.”

Painter knew about the Population Council. They were major advocates for population control through family planning and birth control, and if you believed some of the wilder rumors and rhetoric, some of their methods bordered on eugenics.

No wonder Karlsen was such good friends with her.

Gorman pointed out a few other figures in the crowd who were members of the inner cabal. “That large fellow with the beer gut over there represents a major German chemical and pharmaceutical company. Viatus has been researching how to incorporate one of their insecticides into a new generation of GM crops. If he’s successful, it would severely lessen the pesticide load needed in fields, making crops cheaper to grow and increasing yields.”

Painter nodded as Gorman listed others. It seemed Karlsen’s circle consisted of those who were either seeking ways to address the overpopulation crisis or researching ways to increase food supplies. The senator was right. The man did seem to have the world’s welfare at heart.

So how did that balance with a man who ordered the massacre of a village and who pushed forward the wholesale release of a genetic threat that could contaminate and corrupt the biosphere?

The senator’s earlier assessment was right.

It didn’t make sense.

Painter drew his attention back to Karlsen. Before he confronted the man, he wanted to know all the key players. “What about that other woman,” he asked, “the blonde practically hanging off Karlsen’s arm?”

Gorman squinted. “I don’t know. She looks vaguely familiar, but she’s not a member of his inner circle. Maybe just a friend.”

Satisfied, Painter nudged Gorman and headed through the crowd. In such a gathering, it was doubtful Karlsen would do anything directly to threaten them. Where could he run?

Shifting through the partygoers, Painter soon stood before Karlsen. The man was momentarily alone, having finished his conversation with the Population Council president. Even the woman hanging on his arm had wandered off toward the buffet table.

Karlsen failed to recognize Painter. His gaze skipped over and fixed on Senator Gorman instead. The Norwegian’s face immediately brightened with delight as he thrust out an arm.

Reflexively, Gorman shook it.

“Dear God, Sebastian,” Karlsen said. “When did you get here? How did you get here? I tried calling your hotel when you didn’t show up at the airport. With all the commotion after that attack last night, I couldn’t get through. I thought maybe you’d flown home.”

“No. Security just moved me to a new hotel,” Gorman explained smoothly. “I couldn’t make it to the airport in time, and I didn’t want to hold everyone up. So I booked my own flight.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I insist that Viatus cover your expenses.”

Painter watched the two interact. Though the senator put on a good show, he was plainly out of sorts, clearly on edge and unsettled.

Karlsen, on the other hand, looked genuinely pleased to see the senator. His expression was sincere. Painter could read no evidence that the man standing here had ordered the senator’s assassination the night before. Either Karlsen truly wasn’t involved or he was one frighteningly cool customer.

Gorman glanced over at Painter. The senator’s expression radiated growing doubt. He stammered for a moment, then lifted a hand toward Painter. “I think you’ve already met the investigator from the office of the Inspector General.”

The Norwegian’s weighty gaze dropped on Painter. A moment of confusion settled back to recognition. “Of course, I’m sorry. We spoke briefly yesterday. You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been an insane twenty-four hours.”

Tell me about it, Painter thought.

As he shook Karlsen’s hand, he continued to study the man’s face, looking for cracks in his demeanor. If the man knew Painter was more than just a DCIS agent, he wasn’t showing it.

“The senator was kind enough to allow me to join him,” Painter said. “I had hoped we might still conduct our interview. I only have a few questions, to tie up some loose ends. I promise it won’t take long. Maybe there’s a private place we could chat.”

Karlsen looked put out, but he glanced over at Gorman. Maybe for just an instant, Painter spotted a flicker of guilt. It had been the senator’s son who had been killed in the massacre in Africa. How could he say no in front of a grieving father?

Karlsen checked his watch, then nodded toward a doorway off to the right. “There are some offices back there. Catering has taken up the front half, but there’s a small conference room that should be unoccupied.”

“That will do fine.”

They headed off together.

From across the crowd, Painter noted the blond woman staring at them. Though her expression was deadpan, it was also colder than the Arctic temperature in the vault. Caught looking, she glanced away.

Abandoned at the party, she did not look happy.

Krista watched the trio enter the vault’s administration office. That couldn’t be good.

Moments ago, she had almost choked on the olive floating in her vodka tonic, shocked to see the black-haired Sigma operative appear out of nowhere. With Senator Gorman in tow. She had barely gotten out of the way in time.

She stared at the office door as it closed. How could they be here? She thought she’d left them far behind in Oslo.

Suddenly feeling as if eyes were upon her from all directions, she adjusted the hood of her parka so its mink-lined edge better shadowed her face. She was glad she had taken the extra precaution to don a blond wig for the excursion here. She didn’t want any more trouble like with Antonio Gravel.

She retreated down the tunnel. It ended at a cross passage that branched into the three seed vaults, each secured by air locks. With everyone still listening to speeches, she had the place to herself for the moment and a chance to regroup.

Leaning her back against one of the seed vault doors, she clutched the phone in her pocket. She had not heard any word from her superior. What was she supposed to do? He had told her that he’d take care of the Sigma operative, but here the man was with the senator. Should she act on her own? Wait for orders? At her level in the organization, she was expected to think on her feet, to improvise as needed.

She took several deep breaths and let a plan crystallize. If she had to act, she would. For now, she’d just see how matters unfolded here. Still, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t take precautions.

She slipped out her phone. So far underground she had no hope of getting a cell signal. But after arriving here she had excused herself from Ivar’s side and found an outside line in the office computer room. She had wired a booster into the line so she could use her phone here.

She dialed one-handed. She had men standing ready at Longyearbyen. It was time to call them in. As the line was picked up, she spoke tersely and ordered them to secure all roads off the mountain. She wanted no surprises.

Once done, she clicked off the line and felt more settled. It was the waiting that had worn on her more than anything. It felt good to act, in even this small way. She adjusted a stray blond hair back in place. She should head to the restroom and recheck her makeup.

But before she could take a step, the phone vibrated in her hand. Her entire body went cold and trembled in sync with her cell. She lifted it to her ear.

“Yes?” she answered.

A familiar voice responded and finally passed on her orders. They were simple and direct.

“If you want to live, get out of there now.”

19
October 13, 10:13 A.M.
Aberdaron, Wales

Gray rolled their SUV down the long hill toward the church by the sea. They had driven all night, taking turns at the wheel, napping in between. Everyone looked exhausted.

In the rearview mirror, Gray saw Rachel staring out the window. She had not slept at all. Her eyes looked hollow. She often kept a palm pressed to her belly, plainly scared about what was brewing inside her, a biotoxin that could kill her in three days.

On the other side of the vehicle, the woman who had poisoned her seemed unconcerned. Seichan had slept most of the night. She wasn’t worried that they might escape. They couldn’t even risk calling for help. If Seichan was taken into custody, Rachel was dead.

“Professor,” Gray said loudly enough to stir Wallace as he drowsed between the two women. Rufus, roused from the rear compartment, stretched his neck.

“We there?” Wallace asked grumpily.

“Almost.”

“About bloody time.”

It had been a long night. They had left the Lake District by pony, going by paths known to Dr. Boyle. Well before sunrise, they had ended up in the highland village of Satterthwaite, where they abandoned their ponies in a farmer’s field. Gray had hot-wired an old Land Rover for their use.

But before that, during the long horseback ride, Gray had questioned the professor at length about the object they’d been ordered to find: the key to the Doomsday Book. According to Wallace, a myth surrounding the book claimed that hidden in its cryptic Latin text was a map to a great treasure.

“It’s all rubbish, I tell you,” Wallace had finished dismissively, glaring pointedly at Seichan.

She had shrugged. She had her orders, too.

Needing some lead to follow, Gray had pressed Wallace about the travels of Father Giovanni, specifically where the Vatican archaeologist had gone after visiting the stone ring in the peat bog. Wallace knew few details, as Father Giovanni had become more and more secretive over time. The professor offered only one bread crumb they could follow.

“After what we found in the Lake District, Marco went off to explore another spot marked as ‘wasted’ in the Domesday Book, the oldest of those entries.”

Wallace had gone on to explain how an island in the Irish Sea was the first to be described in the Domesday Book in that strange manner. Bardsey Island lay off the coast of Wales. According to Wallace, Father Giovanni had gone to speak to a priest who knew the history of that island very well.

That’s where they were headed now. After leaving the Lake District, they had driven south all night, returning to Liverpool again, then continuing into Wales. Their destination lay at the tip of a Welsh peninsula, a finger of land pointed straight at Ireland.

Bardsey Island lay a couple of miles farther out to sea. Gray spotted its gray-green hump against the darkening sky. It was a small isle, only two miles wide. A flush of rain brushed that hilltop and headed slowly toward shore.

Luckily, at the moment their immediate goal lay much closer. The church of Saint Hywyn sat above the beach, facing wind and waves. It was here that Father Giovanni had started his quest.

Gray pulled into the parking lot.

The church was all gray stones and tile roof. Large gothic windows stared out into a grim-looking cemetery. It overlooked a fishing village of colorful stone houses and crooked streets.

They all piled out of the car, stretching legs and hunching against the cold stiff breeze blowing off the sea. Waves rolled heavily against the beach. The air smelled of seaweed and salt.

“I’ll stay by the car,” Seichan said. “Don’t want someone stealing it again.”

Gray didn’t even bother to acknowledge her. He buried a flicker of fury—not to avoid provoking her, but because she didn’t deserve any response from him.

Glad to be free of her, Gray led them around the side of the church toward the rectory. On the trip down to Wales, he had used Seichan’s phone to call ahead to Saint Hywyn’s and arrange a meeting with Father Timothy Rye. The priest had been pleased about his interest, until he learned the reason behind the visit.

“Marco’s dead?” Father Rye had said. “I can hardly believe it. I just saw him a few months ago.”

Gray hoped the priest had information they could use.

Before they even reached the rectory door, it popped open. The priest was older than he sounded on the phone. He was as thin as a stick, with only wisps of white hair atop his head. Bundled in an overlarge wool sweater, he tottered to greet them on a gnarled cane, but he wore a warm, welcoming smile.

“Get yourselves out of the wind before it kicks you in the teeth already.” Father Rye waved a bony arm to urge them through his door. “I have a pot on the stove, and Ol’ Maggie dropped off a plate of her cranberry scones. Best in all of Wales.”

They were ushered into a wood-floored room with rafters so low Kowalski had to duck. The walls were the same stone as the church, and a hearty fire danced in a small hearth. A long table had been set for a late morning tea.

Gray’s stomach growled at the floury smell of freshly baked scones, but he wanted to keep the visit short. Time squeezed his chest. He checked on Rachel. The old priest had already taken a shine to her, practically taking her by the hand to the table.

“You sit here. By me.”

Father Rye shuffled a bit. Wallace still hung at the door with Rufus, plainly not sure whether to leave his dog out in the cold.

“What are you waiting there for?” the priest scolded. “Get yourselves out of the cold.”

The invitation was for both. Rufus headed inside even before Wallace moved. The terrier made straight for the fire, curled up, and dropped with a sigh.

Once the rest of them settled, Gray started in. “Father Rye, can you tell us why Father Giovanni—”

“Poor boy.” The priest cut him off and crossed himself. “May he rest in peace.” He turned and patted Rachel on the hand. “And I’ll say a prayer for your uncle in Rome, too. I know he was a good friend of Marco’s.”

“He was and thank you.”

The priest turned back to Gray. “Marco … now let me think. He first came here to the church some three years ago.”

“That would be just after he first visited my excavation,” Wallace added.

“He came quite often after that, traipsing all over Wales. We talked about all manner of sorts, we did. Then last June, he returned quite agitated from Bardsey Island. Like he’d been spooked to the bone. He prayed all night in the church. I heard him, I’m afraid—not that I was eavesdropping, mind you—asking over and over again for forgiveness. When I woke the next morning, he was gone.”

Gray returned to that first visit. “Did Father Giovanni say why he first came here?”

“Aye. He was on a holy pilgrimage to Bardsey Island. Like many people before him. To pay homage to the dead.”

Gray tried to sort through what he was hearing. Clearly the good father hadn’t been totally honest with the elderly priest. But a few words made sense. “What dead are you talking about?”

“The twenty thousand saints buried on Bardsey.” The old man pointed an arm toward the small window, which looked out to sea. The island was all but lost to sight as rain poured heavily over it. “Marco wanted to know all about the history of the dead.”

Gray did, too. “What did you tell him?”

“What I tell all pilgrims. That Bardsey Island is a sacred place. Its history is a long one, going back to the peoples who first came to these fair lands. The ones who stood the stones on end and built the ancient cairns.”

Wallace perked up here. “You’re talking about the Neolithic tribe who first inhabited the British Isles.”

“Aye. You can still find their hut circles up on Bardsey. It was a sacred place even back then. Home of royalty. Do you know the Celtic tales of the Fomorians?”

Gray shook his head. Wallace’s eyes pinched. He plainly understood but wanted to hear what the old priest had to say. “What are Fomorians?” Rachel asked.

“Not what, but who. According to Irish legends, when the Celts first came to these islands, they found them occupied by an ancient race, quite monstrous. Supposedly they were descendants of Ham, who had been cursed by Noah. The Celts and Fomorians fought over Ireland and its islands for centuries. Though not as skilled with swords, the Fomorians were known to be able to cast plagues upon their invaders.”

“Plagues?” Gray asked.

“Aye. To quote one Irish ode, they cast out a ‘great withering death’ upon their enemies.”

Gray glanced at Rachel and Wallace. Could this be the same as what wiped out the highland village?

“Other stories abound over the centuries,” Father Rye continued, “of great wars and wary peace between these two peoples. The Irish storytellers do admit it was the Fomorians who passed on knowledge of agriculture to the Celts. But at the end, one last great battle was fought on Tory Island, and it resulted in the death of the Fomorian king.”

“But what does all this have to do with Bardsey Island?” Wallace asked.

The priest lifted one brow. “As it is said, Bardsey was home to ancient royalty. According to local stories, it was on Bardsey that the Fomorian queen made her home. She was a great goddess who had the power to heal the sick, even cure the plagues.”

Wallace mumbled under his breath, “No wonder Marco kept coming back.”

Gray wanted to ask Wallace what he meant, but Father Rye was on a roll.

“And so the Celts took possession of all the lands. But even their priests, the Druids, recognized how sacred this region was. They made their center of learning on nearby Anglesey Island. Students gathered from all over Europe to study there. Can you imagine? But it was Bardsey Island that the Druids considered to be the most holy. Only the most elevated of the Druids were allowed to be buried there. Including the most famous Druid of all time.”

Wallace must have known this legend. “Merlin.”

Seichan stood on the leeward side of the Land Rover, keeping out of the wind. She opened and closed a folding knife while keeping watch on the rectory door. She didn’t fear anyone trying to escape, nor even using the rectory phone. Though to ensure the latter, she had slipped over and cut the telephone wires.

She could have simply gone inside with them, but piecing together bits of history was not her specialty. She looked down at the knife in her hand. She knew where her talents lay. And she didn’t need Gray distracted. She felt the fury radiating from him, stoking higher the closer she came. So she stayed away. She needed him focused.

For all their sakes.

She had watched the Audi sedan slip into the nearby town soon after they arrived. They were being watched from afar. Her handler, Magnussen, was keeping her on a short leash, tracking them out of the mountains. The hunters skillfully swapped out vehicles. She counted at least three tails. Unless you knew to look for them, they would have been impossible to pick out.

But not for her.

With a flip of her wrist, she snapped the folding blade closed and slipped it into her pocket. Sensing eyes on her even now, she needed to move. She abandoned the vehicle and strode toward the door to the old church. Its stone face was cold and imposing, as hard as the people who eked out a living off the sea here. The weight of centuries was palpable. Even its door was massive, scarred, and old. She tried the handle and discovered the church had been left open.

It always surprised her to find a door unlocked.

It felt somehow wrong, an unnatural state of being.

Before she thought better of it, she pulled open the door. The wind was kicking up. No telling how long the others would be. She entered the church and passed through the entry to the nave. Expecting a gloomy, somber interior, she was surprised to discover an airy and high-raftered space. The walls had been painted a creamy white that captured and held the meager daylight flowing through the arched windows. Polished wooden pews flanked either side, and a bright blue carpet led down the center aisle.

The church was empty, but she found herself unable to move any deeper into the nave. Suddenly tired, Seichan slipped into the closest pew and sat down. She stared over at the cross. She was not religious, but she recognized the pain in the crucified image of Christ.

She knew that agony.

Her breathing grew heavier as she stared. Her vision suddenly blurred. The tears came suddenly, welling up from somewhere deep inside. She covered her face as if trying to stop them, hide them, deny them.

For a long moment, she remained bent in the pew, unable to move. A pressure built inside her chest. It grew to an excruciating point, something large trying to squeeze out a small hole. She waited for it to pass, prayed for it to end—and eventually it did, leaving her both hollow and strangely disappointed. A shudder shot through her body, just once. She then took a long trembling breath, wiped her eyes, and stood up.

She turned her back on the cross and headed out of the nave and out of the church. The cold wind struck her and slammed the door behind her. It reminded her of an important lesson.

People should keep their doors locked.

Gray tried not to scoff. “You’re saying Merlin is buried on Bardsey Island? ”

Father Rye smiled and sipped his tea. “Of course, we all like to tell that story around these parts. It’s said he’s buried in a glass tomb on the island. It’s surely fanciful, but it makes for a fine story, don’t you think?” He winked at Rachel. “Though many do believe, including a few historians, that the Arthurian legends of Avalon arise from Bardsey.”

Kowalski spoke around a mouthful of scone. “What’s Avalon?”

Gray nudged him under the table. They didn’t need the old priest rambling off the subject. They had to find out more about Father Giovanni.

But he was too late.

“Ah, according to Celtic legend,” Father Rye explained, “Avalon was an earthly paradise. It was where King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was forged. Where the enchantress Morgan Le Fay ruled. It was an island of rare apple trees, granting the place its name, from the Welsh word afal. Avalon was considered a place of great healing and longevity. And at the end of the Arthurian cycle, it was where King Arthur was taken to be healed by Morgan Le Fay after the Battle of Camlann. And of course, like I said, it was where the magician Merlin was buried.”

Wallace’s face grew more sour with the telling. “Bollocks,” he finally burst out. “Everyone thinks Avalon or Camelot is in their own backyard.”

Father Rye took no offense at the professor’s outburst. “As I said, it’s only legend. But like Avalon, Bardsey Island has long been considered a place of great healing. Even a travel book from 1188 attests to this claim. The writer described the people of Bardsey as being uncommonly free of disease and ‘scarcely any die except of extreme old age.’ And then, of course, we must not forget our magical apples.”

“Apples?” Kowalski asked.

“Maybe we should move past myths,” Gray commented, trying to redirect the conversation back to Father Giovanni.

“They’re not myths.” Father Rye stood up, crossed to a bowl on a counter, snatched up an apple, and tossed it toward Gray. “Does that feel like a myth to you, young man? Maggie’s son picked that from a tree growing on the island just last week.”

Gray frowned down at the fist-sized fruit.

“There is no other apple like it on earth,” Father Rye said proudly. “A few years back, some apples from that tree were taken to the National Fruit Collection in Kent. They tested the Bardsey apple and determined two things. First, that the tree was a new variety never seen before. And second, that the apple was unusually free of any rot or disease. They tested the gnarled old tree itself and found it to be in the same health. Arborists believe the tree may be the lone surviving specimen from an orchard that the monks of Saint Mary’s once planted on the island a thousand years ago.”

Gray stared at the small apple in his hand, sensing the passage of time and history it represented. No matter what one might believe, there did seem to be a long, strange history of healing tied to this island: first the Fomorian queen, then the Celtic legends of Avalon, and now in his hand, something that had been scientifically proved to be unusually healthy.

He looked out the window at the hump of green land.

What was so special about that island?

Apparently Father Rye wasn’t done with his history lesson.

“Moving forward through time, all things must come to an end,” he said. “And the Celts were no exception. The Romans eventually vanquished them, but only after years of fierce fighting. During this time, the Romans claimed that the Druids cast curses upon their troops, just as the Fomorians had done to the Celts long ago. And after the Druids were gone, the Church came here and settled these pagan lands. They set up an abbey on the island in the thirteenth century. The ruins of its tower can still be found there.”

Wallace drew their conversation full around. “But what about the twenty thousand saints you mentioned at the beginning?”

Father Rye sipped his tea, nodding at the same time, but somehow never spilling a drop. “Bardsey is known as the Isle of Twenty Thousand Saints. A name marking the number of persecuted Christians buried there.”

“So many?” Wallace pressed. “Surely there’s no archaeological evidence for such a mass burial?”

“You are right. I imagine the legend is more allegorical than literal. Though local folklore does whisper of a great death that fell on Bardsey, a withering sickness that slew most of the villagers and monks. Their bodies were burned to ashes and cast out to sea.”

Gray recognized the pattern of that story. Just like the highland village. All evidence burned and swept away, leaving only rumor and a cryptic entry in the Domesday Book.

“Either way, the island has been considered holy ground since the Church first came here. Bardsey grew to become a place of pilgrimage, from ancient times to today. The Vatican declared that three trips to Bardsey were equivalent to one trip to Rome. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. And many others thought the same.”

Father Rye pointed in the direction of his church. “The oldest part of Saint Hywyn’s dates back to 1137. Through its doors, thousands and thousands of pilgrims have flowed on their way to Bardsey. Including most of the Irish and English saints of that time.”

As if summoned by the priest’s words, the rectory door burst open and a tall boy pounded into the room with all the verve that only a thirteen-year-old could muster. The boy quickly pulled off his cap to reveal hair so red it looked ready to set fire to the room.

“There you are, Lyle,” Father Rye said and stood up. “Does your da have his ferry ready for our guests?”

Lyle eyed the crowd. “He does, Father. He ran me up to fetch ‘em. Though they’d better be quick. The blow’s kicking up fierce already.”

Father Rye placed his palms on his hips, looking forlorn at losing his guests. “You best be going. You don’t want to be caught midcrossing when that storm hits.”

Gray nodded. “Let’s go.” He got everyone moving toward the door.

“Can my dog stay with you?” Wallace asked the priest. “There’s one thing Rufus can’t stomach and that’s boats.”

Father Rye’s smile returned. “I’d like that. You can nab him up on your way back.”

Rufus looked happy enough with that decision. He lowered his head back to his paws as he lay by the fire.

As Gray headed to the door, Father Rye called out, “Lyle, when you get to the island, make sure you show them the Hermit’s Cave.” Gray glanced back.

Father Rye winked at him. “Where Merlin is buried.”

11:22 A.M.

Rachel eyed the ferry doubtfully. The small boat looked sound enough. It was a double-hulled catamaran, with a covered pilot’s cabin in front and an open deck in the stern. She had been on such boats before when diving in the Mediterranean. They were notoriously stable and reliable.

Still, as she watched it roll and tilt in the chop, Rachel grew concerned. With one hand clutching her coat closed at her neck, she stared into the stiff wind. She could smell the rain. Though dry here, a heavy downpour swept toward the coast.

Her expression must have been easy to read.

“The Benlli’s a good boat,” the ferryman attested. Decked out in a heavy sweater and yellow slicker, he was Lyle’s father, Owen Bryce. His boy bounced over the rolling deck with the agility of a red-haired monkey. His father watched him proudly. “Don’t you fret, miss. We’ll get you there safe. She runs low with a steep deadrise.”

Rachel didn’t know what he meant, but she took confidence in his vocabulary. He seemed to know what he was talking about.

Lyle appeared and offered her his hand. She took it as she hopped from jetty to boat. Gray and Wallace were already aboard, with their heads together. Kowalski followed behind with Seichan.

Rachel kept away from Seichan and took a seat next to Gray. Still, she sensed the woman’s presence—not because she was staring at Rachel, but because she purposefully wasn’t. It made her angry. She felt she deserved at least to be acknowledged.

To take her mind off Seichan and the rocking boat, she focused back on Gray. He had to speak loudly as the catamaran’s twin outboard engines gurgled to a roar.

“Back at the rectory,” Gray said, “I heard you mumble something about not being surprised Father Giovanni kept coming back here.”

Rachel had heard the same. It had been when Father Rye had been talking about the pagan queen.

Wallace nodded. “Aye. As a historian of Neolithic Britain, I’m quite familiar with the Irish tales of the monstrous Fomorians who supposedly first inhabited the lands here. It was said they were giants who ate people alive. But it was the vicar’s description of them as descendants of Ham, a figure straight out of the Bible, that must have pinched Marco’s nose and kept him focused here.”

“How so?” Gray asked.

“To start with, Celtic tales were all told orally. Spread by word of mouth. The only reason we even have them today is because of the Irish monks who survived the ravages of the Dark Ages in seclusion, who spent their days meticulously decorating and illuminating manuscripts. They preserved the core of Western civilization through the Middle Ages. Including preserving Irish legends and sagas by writing them down for the first time. But what you must understand is that the monks were still Christians, so in their retelling, many of these stories took on a biblical slant.”

“Like the Fomorians being described as descendants of Ham,” Gray said.

“Precisely. The Bible never actually denotes a race for these cursed descendants of Ham, but early Jewish and Christian scholars interpreted the curse to mean that Ham’s descendants were black-skinned. It was the way that slavery was once justified.”

Gray sat back, understanding dawning in his face. “So what you’re saying is that the Celts described the Fomorian queen as being black, so the monks made her a descendant of Ham.”

Wallace agreed. “A dark-skinned queen who could cure the sick.”

“And to Marco, she was possibly an early pagan incarnation of the Black Madonna.” Gray looked out toward the island as the boat churned into the choppier open waters. “Perhaps even the legends of the sorceress Morgan Le Fay and Avalon tie back to that same mythology. Another woman bearing magical healing powers.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “No wonder Father Giovanni became obsessed with this place.”

“For that reason, and also the key.” Wallace folded his arms and easily rolled with the boat’s motion.

“The key to the Doomsday Book?” Rachel asked. “I thought you said that was rubbish.”

“I may have thought it was rubbish, but Marco didn’t. All the legends of the key suggest that it unlocked a vast treasure, a treasure that could save the world. Marco believed I was on the right course in studying the places marked as ‘wasted.’ And I’m growing to think he’s right.”

“Why’s that?” Gray asked.

“Father Rye’s stories. He spoke of how the Fomorians battled the invading Celts by casting plagues on them. It was said the Druids did the same when the Romans invaded. So it makes me wonder if the Celts learned something from the conquered Fomorians, something more than just agriculture. A new means of warfare, a new weapon. Maybe there was a core of truth behind these stories. A truth buried in the Domesday Book.”

Rachel began to get a glimmer of where he was headed, but Gray got there first.

“You think that ability to cast plagues survived into the eleventh century. Maybe an early form of biowarfare.”

Rachel pictured the condition of the mummies. Emaciated, with mushrooms growing internally.

“Could someone have poisoned these villages with some sort of fungal parasite?” Gray asked. “And if so, who?”

“As I said before, all the villages noted in the Domesday Book were located in places of friction between Christians and pagans. And I think it’s especially telling that the first place struck was Bardsey Island. Hallowed ground for the Druids. They could not have liked the monks and Christians being here.”

“So you think some secret sect of Druids wiped them out?”

“And after that, they took their war to the mainland of England. I suspect they began casting these plagues in the borderlands in hopes the conflict would spread throughout England.”

Wallace had to catch himself as the ferry hit a huge wave. Once reseated, he continued. “Perhaps the hidden purpose of the Domesday Book was to map these incursions, to keep track of them. The census takers who compiled the book were sent out to all corners of Britain, collecting information from villagers and townspeople alike, surely doubling as spies.”

“Did it work?” Rachel asked, caught up in the story.

“Well, those hot spots never did spread,” Wallace said with a shrug. “Someone must have found a way to thwart the attacks. Then buried it safely away.”

“The key to the Doomsday Book,” Gray said. “You believe it’s some sort of cure.”

Wallace touched the tip of his nose, acknowledging the same.

“And we’re on the right track?” Gray asked, glancing significantly at Rachel. They didn’t have much room for error.

His hand slipped over hers, squeezed her fingers, then let go. She wished he had kept on holding. His skin had been hot, his grip reassuring.

Wallace answered Gray’s question. “Marco certainly believed in the key. And judging from that gruesome little keepsake of his, he discovered something. And we know he started here at Bardsey.”

The professor nodded toward the growing bulk of the dark island. It was buried in the storm. And a moment later, so were they. The winds kicked up, blowing freezing slaps of water across the boat. Then rain suddenly pounded the boat, as if trying to drive them under the sea. Visibility dropped to yards.

“Hang tight!” Kowalski bellowed from the pilothouse, where he stood with the captain. “Swells dead ahead!”

The bow of the boat rose high, pointed at the sky—then dropped like a rock. After that, motion became a blur. The ferry lurched and heaved, rocked and pitched.

Without warning, Rachel’s stomach did the same. A queasy heat swept through her. Her hands went clammy and cold. She didn’t have time to make it to the ship’s water closet. She swung around in her seat, bent over the rail, and emptied her stomach in a single large wrack of her body. It left her so drained she had a hard time keeping a grip on the wet rail.

Below her face, the sea surged up and down, looking ready at any moment to wash up and over her. Her hands slid. She felt herself tipping.

Then strong arms closed around her, holding her firmly but gently.

“I’ve got you,” Gray said.

She leaned against him, her stomach still rolling with the waves. The rest of the trip was no smoother, but he never left her side.

After what seemed like hours, land filled the world ahead. The storm grew less fierce. Rain receded to a drizzle. A long concrete slipway stuck out into the small harbor, next to it a stone jetty. The ferryman slid his boat skillfully beside the dock as Lyle ran and tossed bolsters between the jetty and the boat. Moments later, they were tied up.

Rachel clambered happily off the rocking boat. The solid crunch of stones under her feet had never felt so good.

“Are you okay?” Gray asked.

She had to take some personal inventory before slowly nodding. “I think so. Just glad to be away from the waves.”

Gray touched her arm. Concern shone in his eyes. “Are you sure it was just the waves?”

Rachel wanted to nod again. But she placed a hand on her belly, remembering what Seichan had said about the poison. One of the first symptoms was nausea.

She glanced back to the boat.

What if it wasn’t the waves?

12:05 P.M.

Bardsey Island, Wales

The tractor climbed up the hill from the harbor. It dragged a hay trailer behind it, and its straw-strewn bed held a collection of sodden people. A tarpaulin staked over the trailer shielded against spats of rain, but it offered no protection against the cutting wind.

Gray huddled below the sides of the trailer, trying his best to hide from the more stubborn gusts. The worst of the storm had abated for the moment, but the sky to the west only grew darker, threatening a worse gale to come.

As they climbed the hill, a panoramic view of the small island opened up. Behind the trailer, out at the tip of the island, rose a tall red-and-white-striped lighthouse. It blinked into the storm with a steady turn of its lamp. Between the lighthouse and the hill was farmland. There were only a dozen or so full-time residences on Bardsey Island, mostly farmers and those who rented cottages to visiting hikers, bird-watchers, and pilgrims.

The only roads were dirt. The only vehicles were tractors.

They’d definitely stepped into another era.

As they neared the crest of the hill, the tractor slowed to a halt. The boy Lyle hopped from the back of the tractor to the bed. He was their official driver and tour guide. He crouched in the middle of the bed as a roll of thunder echoed over the hilltop.

Lyle waited for it to fade, then spoke. “Father Rye said you might be wanting to visit the old Hermit’s Cave. It’s off a wee bit on foot. I can show you.”

Kowalski patted his pockets, looking for a cigar. “Not really feeling like paying the hermit a visit.”

Gray ignored Kowalski and joined Lyle. “You said you helped Father Giovanni before and that he spent most of his time at the ruins of the old abbey. Did he spend any time up at the cave?”

“Not really. Just once at the beginning. Don’t think he went back after that.”

Gray knew he had better take a look to be thorough. “Show me.” “I’ll go with you,” Wallace volunteered. “Be a shame to come all this way and not pay my respects to the dearly departed Merlin.” The sarcasm ran thick in his voice.

Gray glanced at Rachel. She shook her head. She still looked a little queasy, but he wasn’t sure if it was from motion sickness, toxicity, or something in between.

He hopped out of the bed and was surprised to see Seichan jump out after him. Without a word, she headed after Wallace and the boy.

Gray suspected that Seichan’s interest lay less in the hermit’s cave than in a desire not to be left alone with Rachel. Shouldering his pack, he followed after the others up a side trail.

Seichan slowed enough to come even with him. “We need to talk,” she said, not looking at him.

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“Quit being an ass. Despite what you think, I don’t want to be in this position any more than you do. It wasn’t my choice to poison Rachel. You know that, right?”

She finally looked at him.

He wasn’t buying it.

“The end result is the same,” he said. “You get what you want, and others pay the price.” He let his spite show. “So how was your visit with the Venetian curator’s family?”

Her eyes narrowed. Wounded, angry, she swung away. Her voice grew more brittle.

“Whatever is going on here has the Guild stirred up, from its top brass on down. They’re dispensing a huge amount of resources to find this lost key. I’ve only seen them this mobilized once before. Back when we were searching for the Magi’s bones.”

“Why’s that?” Gray hated to get involved with her, but if she had insight, he dared not dismiss it.

“I don’t know. But whatever is happening over at Viatus, it’s only the head of the beast. I suspect the Guild has been manipulating and exploiting the corporation merely as a resource. It’s what they do best. They’re like a parasite that invades a body, sucks it dry, then moves on.”

“But what is their end goal?”

“To find that key. But the bigger question is why is the key so important to the Guild? Discover that and you may be one step closer to finding it.”

She stopped speaking, letting that sink in. Gray had to admit she was right. Maybe he did have to look at the problem from the other way around, work backward.

She finally continued. “We know that Viatus took those mummies and experimented on them. But the bodies were discovered three years ago. So for years now the project has been running below anyone’s radar. I certainly wasn’t aware of it. Yet just as Father Giovanni makes a run for the Vatican, the Guild rises up. Anyone with an ear to the ground like mine could hear it. In the last twenty-four hours, they’ve exposed themselves more than I’ve seen them ever do before. It was what drew me to Italy in the first place, what made me seek out Rachel.”

Gray heard the smallest wince in her voice at the mention of Rachel’s name. She grew quiet after that.

Gray filled the silence. “Wallace believes that the key may be a counteragent against some early form of biowarfare. If the Guild can control the key, they can control the weapon.”

“You could be right, but the Guild’s interest lies deeper than that. Trust me.”

Gray fought against reacting to her last words.

Trust me.

Those were two words she had no right to utter.

He was saved from responding when Wallace lifted an arm ahead and pointed down to the ground. “Here it is!”

“Just think about it,” Seichan finished. “I’m going back to the tractor.”

Gray continued alone to the cave. Lyle had ducked into it. The entrance was shorter than Gray’s waist, but it opened into a tiny cave beyond. Kneeling, Gray pulled out a flashlight from his pack and played it over the inside. It was a natural cavern, and except for a dented beer can and a bit of trash, it was nondescript.

If this was Merlin’s final resting place, he needed to complain about the accommodations. No wonder Father Giovanni never gave it a second look.

“Nothing’s here,” Wallace finally concluded.

Gray agreed. “Let’s head over the hill.”

They walked briskly back as rain began to spatter harder. Once they reached the trailer, they set off again. Lyle drove the tractor over the summit of the hill and down the far side.

Lowlands stretched ahead, again parceled out into tracts of farmland and grazing fields. But at the foot of the hill rose their destination. It was a square tower, half in rubble, rising in the middle of a cemetery. It was all that was left of Saint Mary’s Abbey. A newer chapel and chapel house stood off to one side. From this height, Gray could also make out some crumbled foundation walls of the old abbey.

As they descended, Lyle pointed to a small house in the distance. “Plas Bach!” he called out, naming the place. “You can rent that place. It’s also home to our famous apple tree.”

Gray reached into a pocket of his coat and realized he still had the apple tossed to him by Father Rye. As he stared at the pink apple, it reminded him of the abbey’s residents. Both the apple tree and the monks were described in various circles as uncommonly healthy and of amazing longevity. Had the monks of Saint Mary’s known some secret? Was it the same secret they all sought now, the key to the Doomsday Book? And if so, how did they come by it?

With a final belch of exhaust, reeking of oil, the tractor ground to a halt at the foot of the hill beside the cemetery. Celtic crosses dotted the grounds, including an especially tall one in the shadows of the abbey’s broken tower.

The group climbed out of the trailer bed and dusted off stray bits of straw. The downpour had mostly stopped, which was a relief. But lightning flashed to the north. Thunder rumbled a low warning of more rain to come. They had better work quickly.

Gray stepped over to Lyle. “You said Father Giovanni spent most of his time here. Do you happen to know what he was doing? Is there anywhere he concentrated on looking?”

Lyle shrugged with his whole body. “He was all over the ruins here. Mostly measuring.”

“Measuring?”

A nod answered him. “He had tape measures, and what do you call it?” He pantomimed with his arms, holding them askew and eyeballing down them. “Little telescopes for figuring out how high things are and what not?”

“Surveying equipment,” Gray realized aloud. “Is there any place he spent lots of time measuring?”

“Aye. Our crosses and over by the old stone ruins.” “Ruins? You mean the abbey?”

Wallace stepped to Lyle’s other side. “I think the boy means the ruins of the ancients, don’t you, lad?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Can you show us?”

“Of course I can.” And he was off.

They followed as a group, crossing through the cemetery. Lyle pointed to each Celtic cross as he passed it. He ended at the tallest in the cemetery. It rose from a small hillock.

“This marks the grave of Lord Newborough,” Lyle said. “One of our most famous Bardsey nobles and a great benefactor to the Church.”

Gray craned up at it. Father Giovanni surely knew the significance of the Celtic crosses, how they were modifications of older Druid crosses, which likewise had been borrowed from the ancients who originally occupied the British Isles and carved that symbol on their standing stones. One symbol that linked all three cultures, flowing from the ancient past to the present.

Had the key followed the same path? From ancients, to Celts, to Christians?

Wallace stared across the cemetery. “Father Giovanni measured all the crosses?”

“He did indeed.”

“And you said he did the same to some stone ruins?”

“Over this way.” Lyle circled the rubble of the abbey bell tower and marched into a grassy field. He kicked his feet as if looking for something. “Father Giovanni searched all the ancient hut circles. Most are on this side of the island.”

Wallace marched beside Gray. “No wonder the monks set their abbey here. It was common for the early Church to build on sacred sites. Stamping their religion on top of another. Both as a way of getting rid of it, but also to help the newly converted smoothly transition into the new faith.”

“Here!” Lyle called out from a few yards to the right. “I think this is the one!”

Gray crossed over with Wallace. The boy stood in the middle of a crude ring of stone blocks half-buried in the turf. Gray walked its circumference.

Wallace scratched his chin. “Are you sure this is the right hut circle? The one our friend was interested in?” Lyle suddenly didn’t look so certain.

Gray stopped at one of the stones. He knelt down and parted the grasses. He stared down at the stone and knew they were at the right place.

On the crude boulder was carved a symbol.

A spiral.

Gray stared across the field. He double-checked with his compass. In a direct path east from here, where the sun would rise on the new day, stood Lord Newborough’s grave marker, a giant Celtic cross, whose roots traced back to the same artisans who had carved the ragged spiral on the boulder at Gray’s feet.

“This is it,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” Wallace asked, not hearing him.

Gray continued to study the distant cross. He didn’t need any measuring tools, though he might not have figured it out so quickly if it hadn’t been for Lyle telling him about the painstaking survey the priest had done here.

“I know where Father Giovanni looked,” Gray said.

Rachel drew closer. “Where?”

“Between the spiral and the cross,” Gray said and pointed to Lord Newborough’s grave marker. “Like on the stones up at your excavation, Wallace. Crosses on one side, spirals on the other.”

“And like the leather satchel,” Rachel reminded him.

Gray nodded. “Though Marco never had that advantage. He had to figure all this out on his own. Going by only what he saw at the excavation site. It must have finally dawned on Marco. Possibly literally. Father Rye said that Marco became agitated last June, which meant he was here during the midsummer solstice. The longest day of the year. A sacred holiday for the pagans, especially those who worshiped the sun.”

He pointed to the cross and drew a line down to his toes. “I wager it would take calculations to prove it—something Marco likely did—that on the morning of the solstice, the sun’s first rays would strike that cross and cast a shadow pointed straight here.”

“And that led to Marco’s discovery?” Wallace pressed.

“Maybe. I can pace it out to be sure, but I don’t think I have to. Look what sits exactly midway between the cross and the spiral.”

Gray pointed at the pile of crumbling stones.

“Saint Mary’s tower,” Wallace said, then turned to him. “You think whatever Marco found was hidden beneath the tower?”

“You said it yourself. That the Church built its holy buildings atop older sacred sites. The island is riddled with caves. Caves that the Druids considered sacred. And stories continue to this day of some powerful magic, personified by Merlin, buried in a cave on the island. What if they got the cave wrong?”

Wallace’s voice grew hushed. “Not the Hermit’s Cave, but something hidden in secret under the abbey.”

Rachel asked a good question. “But how do you look under there?”

“That dead priest sure didn’t bulldoze his way in there,” Kowalski added.

They were both right. There were no signs of excavation around the tower ruins.

“There must be another way down there,” Gray said and turned to the best source for that information. “Lyle, are there any other tunnels or caves somewhere near here?”

“Aye. Lots of caves. But none too close.”

It would take them months to search them all. Gray stared over at Rachel. She stood with her arms crossed. They didn’t have months.

“But I can show you what I showed Father Giovanni!” Lyle suddenly said brightly. “It’s not a cave, but it’s just as good.”

“What?” Gray asked.

“Come see. My friends and I play down there all the time.” Lyle took off like a shot. They had to run to keep up with him.

“We’re not in that big of a hurry,” Kowalski grumbled.

“Speak for yourself,” Rachel said.

Lyle led them back around the tower. This time he headed in the opposite direction from before. He came almost full circle, but then stopped not far from the tall Celtic cross. He pointed to a square hole in the ground, framed by stones.

“What is it?” Wallace asked.

Gray dropped to his knees and stared down. The sides were stacked bricks. Near the bottom, a black niche was cut into one wall. “Like I said,” Lyle answered, “it’s not a cave.” Gray grabbed his flashlight. “It’s a crypt.”

“Aye. Lord Newborough’s tomb. Course he’s not down there any longer. At least I don’t think he is.”

“We have to search it,” Gray said.

Kowalski shook his head and backed two steps away. “No, we don’t. Whenever you go in a hole, bad things happen.”

20
October 13, 12:41 A.M.
Svalbard, Norway

Monk sent a silent prayer of thanks to the engineers who invented heated handgrips for snowmobiles. The day’s temperature continued to drop as the polar storm rolled across the Arctic archipelago. Even bundled in a snowsuit, helmet, gloves, and layers of thermal undergarments, Monk grew to appreciate the advancements of modern snowmobile technology.

He and Creed rested their vehicles in a snowy valley below the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Two hundred yards away, the angular concrete bunker stuck out of the side of Mount Plataberget. It was the only evidence of the vast underground depository.

That, and the patrolling Norwegian army.

Creed’s voice came over the radio in his helmet. “Got company coming.”

Monk twisted in his seat. Behind them, a two-man Sno-Cat came charging around an icy escarpment. Its tracks chewed across the terrain and cast up a rooster tail of ice and snow.

For the past hour, he and Creed had been playing a cautious game of cat and mouse with the outlying patrols. They tried their best to keep a wary distance without looking as if that was what they were doing. The rental company’s logo on the sides of their snowmobiles would only allow them so much latitude.

“What should we do?” Creed asked.

“Stay put.”

Their smaller machines could probably outmaneuver the bulkier Sno-Cat,
but to flee now would only draw the full attention of the Norwegian army upon them. Instead, Monk lifted an arm in greeting.

Might as well say hello to the neighbors.

For the past hour, Monk had been observing the soldiers, noting their behavior. They spent most of the time chatting with each other in huddled groups. He noted a few cigarettes glowing. Occasionally a bark of laughter would echo off the mountain and reach them. He recognized the general pattern: boredom. Out here in the hinterlands of the frozen north, the soldiers plainly placed their full confidence in the isolation and harsh terrain.

No reason to dispel that attitude.

“Just play it cool,” Monk said into the radio.

“If I was any cooler, I’d be shitting ice cubes.”

Monk glanced over at him. Was that Creed cracking a joke? Monk lifted his eyebrows. There might be hope for the kid yet.

The side door to the Sno-Cat popped open. Steam wafted out of the heated cab. The soldier didn’t even bother to pull up his parka’s hood. In fact, he left the coat unzipped. With his blond hair and apple cheeks, he looked like he’d just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalog, the Norwegian version.

See the Norwegian in his natural habitat…

Monk took off his helmet, to look less intimidating. Creed did the same. The soldier waved an arm at them and spoke in Norwegian. Monk didn’t understand him, but the general gist was plain.

What are you doing here?

Creed answered in turn, stumbling a bit with the language. Monk heard the word American. The kid must be laying out their cover story. Monk supported him by pulling out a book from his parka’s pocket, a field guide to birds that he’d picked up at the rental agency. He also lifted the binoculars from around his neck.

Nobody here but us bird-watchers.

The soldier nodded and tried his hand at English. “Storm coming,” the Norwegian warned. He waved an arm back in the general direction of Longyearbyen. “Should go.”

Monk couldn’t exactly argue against that. “We’ll be heading back,” he promised. “Just stopping to rest.”

He rubbed his backside for effect—actually he was sore after trundling all over the glacier-broken landscape.

This earned a grin from the soldier. Over by the Sno-Cat, the other door popped open. The driver hopped out, yelled a warning, then jammed a whistle to his lips and drew his sidearm. As he blew a shrill shriek, he pointed his weapon at them.

What the hell?

Both Creed and the other soldier dropped flat to the snow. Monk hesitated. The soldier fired three times. Monk twisted at the same time and spotted a large lumbering form disappearing around a cluster of boulders off in the distance. The gunman’s shots sparked off the stone.

“Polar bear,” Creed said needlessly as the blasts echoed away.

He and the soldier regained their feet. Creed had gone pale, but the soldier only smiled and said something in Norwegian that made his companion with the pistol grin.

They seemed not overly concerned. Like scaring away a raccoon from a garbage can. Of course, in this case, Monk and Creed were the garbage cans. The polar bear must have been stalking them since they’d stopped.

The first soldier motioned toward town, warning them off.

Monk nodded.

The two soldiers climbed back into the Sno-Cat, sharing a joke, clearly at the Americans’ expense.

Creed returned to his snowmobile. “What do we do now?”

“We keep patrolling. But this time, why don’t I watch the seed vault, and you keep an eye out for anything looking to eat us.”

Creed nodded and put on his helmet.

Monk lifted his binoculars and focused across the valley. He hoped Painter wouldn’t be too much longer. If he and Creed continued to idle around here, suspicions would begin to arise. Especially with the storm about to hit.

Adjusting the focal length on his binoculars, he brought up a clear image of the bunker entrance. He watched the door open and the slim figure of a woman rush out. One of the guards tried to engage her. Who wouldn’t? Even from two hundred yards away, it was plain she put the sex back in sexy.

She snubbed the guard with a raised palm and hurried toward the parked vehicles. Apparently she’d had enough of the party—and could not get away fast enough.

12:49 P.M.

The interview quickly went bad.

Painter and Senator Gorman had followed the CEO of Viatus into the set of offices off the main vault tunnel. A staging area for the caterers had been set up in the central room with desks shoved to the walls and replaced by rolling food-tray cabinets, chafing dishes, and storage bins. Dessert was being prepared, which apparently involved a chocolate fountain. The place smelled like a Hershey’s factory with an underlying hint of Norwegian cod.

They hurried through the space to a back office. Inside, a pair of computers glowed at either end of a long table. Between them, organized into neat rows, were piles of aluminum packets. Along a neighboring wall were stacked a half-dozen black plastic storage bins. One was open on the floor, full of the silver envelopes.

“Seed shipments arrive daily,” Karlsen had explained, playing tour guide. “Unfortunately, now they’re backlogged due to the party. But tomorrow these boxes will be sorted, cataloged, registered by country, even …”

That’s when things went wrong.

Maybe it was the nonchalant manner of the CEO, or maybe it was clear to all that Karlsen’s rambling discourse hid a well of guilt. Either way, as soon as the office door was shut, the senator lunged out and grabbed a fistful of Karlsen’s shirt. He slammed him into the stacked bins.

Stunned by the sudden attack, Karlsen did not react for a breath. Then his face collapsed into a muddle of confusion.

“Sebastian, what are you—?”

“You fucking killed my boy!” Gorman yelled at him. “Tried to assassinate me last night!”

“Are you insane?” Karlsen shoved both arms out and broke free. “Why would I try to kill you?”

Painter had to admit that the guy definitely sounded shocked. But he also noted that Karlsen failed to deny the murder of the senator’s son. Painter came between them. Red-faced, Gorman retreated a step. He turned his back, plainly trying to regain his composure.

Inwardly Painter kicked himself. He hadn’t noticed Gorman ramping up like that. He should have reined him in sooner. They weren’t going to get anything out of Karlsen by driving him into a defensive posture. The man would put up walls that they’d never get through.

Painter readjusted his strategy. With Karlsen shaken, and before the man locked down completely, Painter knew he had to strip away any attempt at pretense.

“We know about the mushroom farm, about the bees, about what was covered up in Africa.” Painter hit him with charges one after the other. While Karlsen might have been able to take one blow, the rapid series of punches gave him no chance to recover.

His facade momentarily crumbled, revealing his complicity, his knowledge. He was not a pawn or a blind figurehead. Karlsen knew damned well what was going on.

Still, the man tried to backpedal. The flash of guilt vanished behind a wall of denial. “I don’t know what you’re both talking about.”

No one was fooled.

Least of all a grieving father.

Senator Gorman flew at the man again. Painter didn’t try to stop him. He wanted Karlsen off balance, hit from all sides. Morally, psychologically, physically. Painter would use all the tools he had at hand.

Gorman barreled into Karlsen, ramming a shoulder into his chest and driving the man back into the wall. Lifted off his feet, Karlsen struck the wall hard. The breath gasped out of him. The senator had been a defensive lineman in his college years.

But Karlsen was no doddering old man. He raised his arms and slammed his elbows down hard on the senator’s back. Gorman was knocked to his knees.

On the ground, the senator got an arm behind Karlsen’s left leg. With a roar, Gorman hugged and twisted hard. He threw the murderer of his son facedown on the floor, then piled onto his back and pinned him to the floor.

“You killed Jason!” Gorman growled at the man, his voice trapped between fury and sob. “You killed him.”

Karlsen struggled to free himself, but Gorman held him down. The CEO’s face became beet red. He twisted his neck, trying to get a look at Gorman. His voice spat at his accuser. “I … I did it for you!”

The words momentarily stunned the senator. But Painter wasn’t sure if the shock came from the sudden confession or the strange statement. A part of Gorman must have hoped Painter was wrong. Now there was no illusion.

“Shut the fuck up,” Gorman warned, not wanting to hear anything more.

With the one domino dropped, Painter knew he could get the others to fall. What he had thought might take a full day had been accomplished in minutes. But they were far from finished here. Karlsen could recant. He was still on home turf in Norway, with powerful ties and connections.

Painter knew he had to take advantage, to control the situation. That meant getting Karlsen out of here and keeping him in custody. For that, he would need to call in some help.

“Keep him there,” Painter said.

He crossed to the computers and searched behind them. There had to be a communication trunk feeding into this room. A T1 or T3 line for Internet connectivity, but more important—

Painter’s fingers found the telephone line. He pulled and traced it back to the wall. With no cell service up here, he needed to radio Monk, but buried underground, that was impossible. He would have to tap into an open line using a device known as a SQUID to boost the signal. As his fingers ran along the wire to the wall, he found some gadget already plugged into the telephone outlet. He pulled it out and immediately recognized its function.

Cell signal booster.

It wasn’t that sophisticated, but the technology was above anything he’d seen here. It felt out of place. He examined it closely and recognized a short-range transmitter wired into it.

Why would someone need a short-range transmitter wired to a telephone line?

He could think of only one reason.

The door crashed open behind him.

He swung around as Copresident Boutha stormed into the room. A few other men stood behind him. Boutha frowned in confusion at the scenario he’d burst in upon: Karlsen on the floor, the senator kneeling on his back.

“Caterers reported yelling …,” Boutha began, then shook his head. “What is going on here?”

Using the distraction, Karlsen was able to throw an elbow back and catch Gorman in the ear. Knocked to the side, Gorman couldn’t stop Karlsen from rolling free.

Boutha and the others still blocked the way out. Trapped, Karlsen turned to face Gorman, only to find a fist flying toward his nose. He dodged enough to avoid a broken nose, but he took a hard punch to the eye and stumbled back a few steps.

“Stop!” Painter bellowed, freezing everyone in place with the force of his command.

All eyes turned to him.

Painter pointed an arm at Boutha. “We must evacuate this facility. Now!”

“Why?”

Painter looked down at the foreign device in his hand. He could be wrong, but he saw little reason for a short-range transmitter.

Except one.

“There’s a bomb hidden somewhere down here.”

Shocked reactions and questions tried to follow.

Painter cut through them. “Get everyone out!”

Unfortunately, they were too late.

12:55 P.M.

Monk edged his snowmobile through the valley, making a slow slaloming pass along the bottom. Creed followed in his tracks, watching for polar bears. Monk kept an eye on the concrete bunker that marked the entrance to the seed vault.

Overhead, the storm had rolled a mass of dark clouds over the mountain. The sky pushed lower and dropped the temperature with it. Winds also picked up, scouring through the valley in blinding gusts of ice crystals.

Monk called for a stop. He thought he had heard something, or at least felt something deep in his chest. He cut the engine. The low rumble continued, coming from the cloud layer overhead, like distant thunder to the north. Before he had a chance to question it, the rumble turned into a roar, then into a scream. A pair of jets shot out of the clouds and raced straight down the valley toward Monk and Creed.

No, not toward them.

As the jets passed overhead, they veered sharply back up with a shriek of acceleration. Missiles fired from their underbellies. Hellfire rockets. The missiles struck the snowy ridge where the seed vault was buried. A line of fire exploded across the mountain face. Rocks and flames shot high. The concussions pounded Monk and Creed.

Up on the ridge, men went flying, some torn to fiery shreds. Others fled on foot or slid down the mountainside. Monk watched a large Sno-Cat tumble into a crater that once was the lone road up there.

As the smoke cleared, Monk searched the ridge. The bunker still stood, but one side had been blasted black and a large chunk of it had cracked away. The missile strike had only dealt a glancing blow.

Then a new rumble grew in volume. Monk feared the jets were scrambling for another pass. But this noise was accompanied by cracking detonations.

As Monk watched in horror, the entire mountainside above the bunker began to slide. A massive section of glacier broke loose and crashed, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, gaining speed and turning into an avalanche of ice.

It swamped the bunker and buried it completely.

More soldiers were caught and crushed in its path.

And still it kept coming.

Toward them.

“Monk!” Creed screamed.

Dropping back into his seat, Monk thumbed the ignition. His engine roared. He gunned the throttle. The rear track chewed snow, then found traction. Twisting the handle, Monk pointed an arm to the far side of the valley.

“Get to high ground!”

Creed needed no guidance. He had already turned and was flying toward the opposite side. The pair of them raced across the valley floor, trying to get clear.

Monk heard the avalanche strike behind him. It sounded like the end of the world, a detonation of ice and rock. A chunk of glacier the size of a one-car garage bounced past Monk on the right. Ice pelted his snowmobile and his back.

Monk hunkered down. He could go no faster. He had the throttle fully open.

As the avalanche’s leading edge reached them, ice boulders pounded alongside their vehicles. A river of dancing pebbles washed under and around them. The smaller bits of glacial ice had been polished smooth during the grinding plunge, turning into a flood of diamonds.

Then they were headed up.

The front skis of the snow machines carved a swift path up out of the valley. The icy monster behind them tried to give chase, but then gave up and settled back into the valley.

To be sure, Monk climbed higher before calling for a stop. Keeping his engine running, he turned and surveyed the damage. A fog of ice crystals clouded the lower valley, but it was clear enough to see to the far ridge.

There was no bunker.

Just broken ice.

“What do we do?” Creed asked.

A shout answered him. They both turned to the left. A pair of Norwegian soldiers appeared, rifles on their shoulders. Only now did Monk spot the Sno-Cat parked higher up the slope.

It was the same pair as before.

But this was no friendly visit like the earlier one.

The soldiers kept their weapons up. After what had happened, they must be ringing with suspicions, half-blind with anger and shock.

“What do we do?” Creed asked again.

Ever the teacher, Monk showed him by raising his arms. “You surrender.”

1:02 P.M.

Painter stood in the dark.

The lights had gone out with the first explosions. At first he thought the hidden bomb had gone off. But as the series of concussive blasts continued, echoing down from above, Painter guessed a missile strike against the mountainside.

It was confirmed a moment later when a massive grumbling roar erupted. It sounded like a freight train running over them and crashing away.

Avalanche.

Screams and shouts echoed from the tunnel as guests and workers panicked. This deep underground, the darkness was absolute and sought to smother you.

Painter remained rooted in place, taking inventory. For the moment, they were still alive. If there was a hidden bomb down here, why hadn’t it gone off at the same time as the missile strike?

He squeezed the transmitter in his hand. Pulling the device out of the wall outlet may have saved all their lives, preventing a signal from being telephoned in and triggering the bomb.

But they weren’t out of danger yet.

If Painter had planned this attack, he would’ve built in a secondary backup plan. Something set on a delayed timer to account for any mishap. He thought hard and fast. The transmitter had a limited range, especially with all the rock. If a bomb was planted, it had to be close, likely brought in recently.

The caterers?

No, too many and too risky. Somebody would’ve seen it.

Then he remembered Karlsen’s earlier words as they entered the back office: Seed shipments arrive daily. Unfortunately, now they’re backlogged due to the party.

The storage bins.

Blind, Painter stepped over to the stacked boxes. He fumbled the top off one and shoved his hands into it, all the way to the bottom. He sifted through the heat-sealed aluminum seed packets.

Nothing.

He knocked the bin aside. It crashed in the dark.

“What are you doing?” Gorman shouted, startled.

Painter didn’t have time to answer. Desperation kept him silent. He found nothing in the second bin—but as he yanked the lid off the third, a glow shone from inside the box, buried under a layer of seed packets.

In the darkness, the tiny light shone as brightly as a beacon. The other men drew closer. Painter picked aside the packets and exposed what lay beneath.

Numbers on an LED display glowed back at him.

09:55

As he watched, the counter ticked downward.

The room’s lights flickered, went off, then came back on. The emergency generators had finally kicked in. Out in the hall, the screaming immediately quieted. While their situation was no better, at least they would die with the lights on.

Painter reached inside and carefully lifted out the object. He doubted it had been rigged with any motion-sensing trigger. The storage bin had been shipped, likely roughly handled in transit. Still, he cautiously lowered it to the floor and knelt beside it.

The object was the size of two shoe boxes, roughly barrel-shaped. The LED display glowed on the top. A net of wires folded into the metal casing under it. Military lettering—PBXN-112—stamped into its side left no doubt in Painter’s mind as to what they all faced.

Even Boutha guessed.

“It’s a bomb,” he whispered.

The man, unfortunately, was wrong.

Painter corrected him. “It’s a warhead.”

1:02 P.M.

Krista braked the four-wheel-drive truck at the foot of the mountain. As she fled down the icy road, she had watched the missile barrage in her rearview mirror. Flames had filled the world behind her. Concussions had rattled her truck windows. A moment later, the glacial ridge of the mountain had broken away and shattered across the entrance to the seed vault.

By the time her truck came to a stop, her hands still trembled on the steering wheel. Her breathing remained hard.

She had fled immediately after the phoned warning. What if she had been delayed, been slowed up for some reason? There had been no margin for error.

Still, she had survived.

The terror in her was slowly transformed into a strange elation. She was alive. Her hands balled into fists on the steering wheel. A bubbling laugh of relief shook out of her. She fought to compose herself.

To either side of the road, men appeared in camouflaged polar snowsuits. A tank of a vehicle on massive treads trundled to block the road.

She had nothing to fear. Not any longer. These were her forces.

She shoved the truck door open and headed over to join them. Snow had begun to fall. Heavy flakes drifted through the air. She climbed up into the cab of the giant vehicle. The rear passenger compartment was packed with grim-faced men bearing assault rifles.

Outside, the others mounted snowmobiles.

The road into the mountains might be gone, but she still had work to do up there. There would be stragglers after the bombing, and she had her orders.

No survivors.

1:04 P.M.

“Can you stop it?” Senator Gorman asked.

In the back office, the others all gathered around Painter and the warhead on the floor, even Karlsen. He looked as sick as anyone. This must not have been his play. Especially since he was trapped with them. Painter did not have time to contemplate the significance of that.

Instead, he faced the others. “I need someone to run and check on the condition of the upper tunnel,” he said calmly and firmly. “Have we caved in? Is there a way out? And I need a maintenance engineer ASAP.”

Two of Boutha’s men nodded and ran back out, all too happy to flee away from the warhead.

“Can you defuse it?” Karlsen asked.

“Is it nuclear?” Gorman followed up.

“No,” Painter answered both of them. “It’s a thermobaric warhead. Worse than a nuclear weapon.”

They might as well hear it straight. The warhead was a form of fuel-air explosive. The casing was filled with a fluorinated aluminum powder with a PBXN-112 detonation charge buried in the center.

“It’s the ultimate bunker-buster,” Painter explained as he studied the device. Talking helped him to concentrate. “It’s a two-stage explosion. First, detonation casts a massive cloud of fine aerosol. Enough to fill this entire tunnel. Then the powder ignites in a burning flash. This creates a pressure wave that crushes everything in its path, using up all the oxygen at the same time. So you can die four ways. Blown up, crushed, burned, or suffocated.”

Ignoring the gasps around him, Painter focused on the detonator. His expertise wasn’t in munitions but in electronics. It didn’t take him long to recognize the tangle of lead, ground, and dummy wires. Cut the wrong one, change the voltage, trigger a shock … there were a thousand ways for it to blow up in your face and only one way to stop it.

A code.

Unfortunately, Painter didn’t know it.

This wasn’t like the movies. There was no bomb expert to defuse it at the last second. No clever ploy to implement, like freezing the warhead with liquid nitrogen. That was all cinematic crap.

He looked at the clock.

In less than eight minutes, the warhead was going to blow.

The pounding of feet alerted them to the early return of a runner.

“No cave-in,” the man gasped out. “Ran into one of the soldiers coming back down. Outer blast door held. He opened it. It’s just a wall of ice out there. We’re buried. So thick, he said, you can’t see any daylight through it.”

Painter nodded. The strategy made sense. The vault had been engineered to withstand a nuclear strike. If you wanted to kill everyone down here, toss in a warhead like this and seal it up tight. If the firestorm didn’t kill you, the lack of remaining oxygen would.

That left his second option.

The other runner appeared with a tall Norwegian built like a refrigerator. The maintenance engineer. His eyes spotted the warhead on the floor. He went pale. At least he was no fool.

Painter stood, drawing his attention up from the bomb. “Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any other way out of here?” He shook his head.

“Then those air locks for the seed rooms. Are they pressurized?”

“Yes, they’re maintained at a strict level.

“Can you adjust them higher?”

He nodded. “I’ll have to do it manually.”

“Pick one of the seed banks and do it.”

The engineer glanced around the room, nodded, then took off at a dead run. The man definitely was no fool.

Painter turned to the other men—Boutha, Gorman, even Karlsen. “I need you to gather everyone into that seed vault. Now.”

“What are you going to do?” the senator asked.

“See how fast I can run.”

1:05 P.M.

With his hands on his helmet and no ability to speak the language, Monk had a hard time negotiating for their freedom.

The Norwegian soldiers continued to level their weapons at the prisoners, but at least their cheeks weren’t pressed as firmly against the rifle stocks. Creed pleaded their case. He had his helmet off and was speaking rapidly, a mix of Norwegian and English, accompanied by charades.

Then a voice started to rasp in Monk’s ear, full of static, coming from his helmet radio. Most of the communication dropped out. “Can you hear … help … no time to …”

Despite having a rifle pointed at his face, Monk felt a surge of relief. He recognized the voice. It was Painter. He was still alive!

Monk tried responding. “Director Crowe, we read you. But it’s choppy. Is there any way we can help?”

He failed to get any response. The tone of Painter’s voice didn’t change. The transmission wasn’t reaching him.

Creed had heard Monk’s outburst. “Is that the director? He’s still alive?”

The two rifles focused on Monk.

“Alive but trapped,” he answered. He held up a hand, struggling to listen to the radio. The transmission remained crap. There was a lot of rock to get through, even for a SQUID transmitter.

The soldier barked at him. Creed turned and tried to explain. Their stern faces shifted from anger to concern.

As static buzzed in his ear, Monk considered his options. How long would the oxygen last in there? Could they get heavy digging equipment moved up there fast enough, especially with the road bombed out?

Then a few words burst through the static. It squashed his momentary hope. Painter’s words were chewed apart by the static, but there was no mistaking the threat.

“Down here… a warhead… We’ll try to …”

Static cut off the rest.

Before Monk could relate the bad news to Creed, a rumbling echoed over the mountains, accompanied by the whining roar of snowmobiles.

They all turned.

Down the mountainside, a cluster of vehicles slowly wound up from the lower valley, heading their way.

Monk lifted his binoculars and focused on one of the snowmobiles. Men were double mounted. While one drove, the other had a rifle up on a shoulder. They were all dressed in polar suits. Snow-white, with no military insignia.

A stray Norwegian soldier had somehow made it halfway down the mountain already. He waved at the approaching party.

A rifle cracked.

Blood spattered against the white snow.

The soldier dropped. Monk lowered his binoculars.

Someone had come to clean house.

1:09 P.M.

Painter didn’t know if his radio transmission got out. He had plugged the SQUID into the wall and hoped for the best.

All he could do now was run.

He pushed a caterer’s serving trolley ahead of him. Strapped on top with bungee cords was the warhead. He sprinted up the hundred and fifty yards of the tunnel.

The LED display glowed back at him.

04:15

As he ran, he watched it tick down below the four-minute mark. At last, he spotted the outer blast door at the top of the exit ramp. It had been left open by the guard who had peeked out. Chunks of ice had spilled inside, but beyond the door was a solid wall of broken glacier.

With a surge of speed, he shot up the ramp. He wanted the charge placed as close to that opening as possible. Reaching the top, Painter shoved the trolley cart toward the door, spun on a toe, and sprinted in the opposite direction.

At least it was all downhill from here.

He fled, breath gasping, trying to lengthen his stride.

If he couldn’t stop the bomb, he might as well make use of it. He didn’t know how thick the plug of ice was over the door, but the warhead’s thermobaric payload was unique. The initial blast could help break some of the ice; then, as the cloud of fluorinated aluminum ignited, the searing heat would vaporize and melt more. But it was upon the secondary blast wave that Painter pinned all his hopes.

The biggest threat of a thermobaric bomb was its sudden and massive burst of pressure. Exploded inside caves or closed buildings, the pressure wave would travel outward and kill around corners and far down passageways. It pulverized and sheared flesh. Burst eardrums, exploded lungs, squeezed blood out of every orifice.

Painter hoped it could also blast out that plug of ice, pop it free like a champagne cork.

But, of course, without crushing them all to pulp in the meantime.

As he hit the bottom of the tunnel, he sprinted into the lower cross passage. He skidded around the corner and sped to the center air lock.

He ripped the door open, heard the pressure pop, then slammed the hatch shut behind him. Air valves in the ceiling chugged to bring the pressure back up. As Painter crossed the air lock, the door flew open ahead of him.

Senator Gorman held it and waved Painter into the seed room. “Hurry!”

Painter dove through. Gorman closed the door with a steel clang.

A crowd gathered around the door, keeping together despite the size of the vault. The seed bank itself was unremarkable, just a cavernous room full of numbered shelves. Identical black storage bins filled the racks, like a warehouse club that sold only one item.

Someone in the group was counting down loudly.

“Eleven … ten … nine…”

Painter had barely made it back in time. After breaking the air lock seal, he prayed the pressure had a chance to rebuild in time. Their best chance to survive the coming blast was to fight pressure with pressure.

If the air lock didn’t hold, they’d all be crushed.

“Eight… seven … six…”

Karlsen pushed through to join Painter. His eyes were wide. “Krista’s not here,” he said, as if Painter knew what that meant.

Someone else did. “Krista … Krista Magnussen? Jason’s girlfriend?”

Anger flashed in Senator Gorman’s voice.

Painter shoved the two men apart. “Later.”

First, they had to survive.

The countdown continued.

“Five… four … three …”

21
October 13, 12:32 P.M.
Bardsey Island, Wales

As Gray prepared to descend into the crypt, the true heart of the storm rolled over Bardsey Island. It was as if the gods themselves warned against violating the tomb.

With a crack of thunder, the skies opened up. Rain poured down in large drops that shattered like bombs upon gravestones and markers. To the north, lightning crackled in forking chains.

“I’ll go first,” Gray said between thunderclaps.

The boy Lyle had run to the nearby chapel house to fetch a rope. But with the rain falling so hard, Gray feared the tomb could flood before any of them had a chance to search it.

The crypt’s opening was a hole in the ground about two feet wide, barely enough room for one person to climb through. It dropped seven feet to a stone floor. Below, it was wider, maybe twice as large as the opening. He couldn’t see more without going down.

Grabbing the sides, Gray lowered himself into the hole. He used his legs to brace himself, then dropped the rest of the way down. He landed in a crouch and freed his flashlight.

He stared up at the others’ faces.

“Be careful,” Rachel said.

“Let me know what you see,” Wallace added.

Both Kowalski and Seichan hung farther back.

Gray clicked on his flashlight and searched the main shaft. The sides were natural rock archways that framed brick walls, slightly inset. He imagined coffins and moldering bones behind those bricks. And perhaps one of those bodies was Lord Newborough’s.

As rain sluiced down the walls, Gray took the time to examine each surface. He ran his hands over them, searching for loose stones, some indication that Father Giovanni had been here and discovered something.

“Well?” Wallace called down.

“Nothing.”

Rachel pulled away, but her voice reached him. “Lyle’s coming back with the rope.”

Gray turned his attention to the fourth wall. Here the bricks framed a low archway, barely taller than midthigh. Crouching, Gray shone his light down into it. The space was plainly meant to hold a coffin. Afterward, the archway would have been walled up like the others. But currently the niche was empty.

He knew the hole had to be important. This wall faced the ruins of the abbey’s tower. Dropping to his hands and knees in the pooled water, Gray crawled into the niche. It was deep. Beyond the opening, the bricks disappeared and solid rock surrounded him. Gray worked slowly to the back of the tomb.

He patted the sides, ran his palms over the surfaces.

Nothing.

Though frustrated, he remained confident. Whatever was hidden had to lie beneath the ruins of Saint Mary’s. But maybe he was wrong about the access point. Maybe it wasn’t this crypt. Father Giovanni could have searched it upon Lyle’s suggestion—just as Gray was doing—then moved on.

He heard a splash behind him as someone joined him in the crypt.

He retreated and climbed out of the niche. Rachel stood there. Her hair clung wetly to her face. Her eyes glowed under the shine of his flashlight, full of hope. He could not fail her.

“Dead end?” she asked.

He grimaced, not appreciating her choice of words, nor happy with his lack of success. “I don’t see any sign that Father Giovanni has been down here.”

“Can I try?” she asked and held out her hand for his flashlight. How could he refuse?

He passed her the light. She crouched on one hand and sidled into the empty tomb. Her lithe physique allowed her more maneuverability in the tight space. Her flashlight swept along the walls.

“See anything?” he asked.

“No.”

From above, Wallace voiced Gray’s earlier concern. “Maybe we’re in the wrong hole.”

Rachel gave up and swung around. In a demonstration of limberness, she turned herself fully around in the niche and headed back out—then froze.

“What is it?” Gray asked. “Come see.”

Her flashlight was pointed straight back at him. Shielding his eyes, he started to crawl in toward her.

“No,” she warned. “Slide in on your back.”

Gray obeyed. Soaking wet, he rolled over and scooted on his elbows and pushed with his legs into the niche. Faceup was the proper position for lying in a grave.

“What’dya see down there?” Wallace called.

“Don’t know yet,” Gray answered as he shimmied deeper.

“All the way back,” Rachel urged.

He kept sliding in. Eventually his head rested between her knees. She leaned over him with the flashlight. She smelled of wet wool. He was all too conscious of her breasts above his head.

“Look,” she said.

He was, but she probably meant where the flashlight was pointed. He had to squirm up to his elbows and look back toward the entrance. He didn’t see anything at first, just the back half of the brick wall that closed off the natural stone niche.

“Notice how all the bricks are laid horizontal, but look at the three around the lip of the opening. At the top and to either side.”

Gray saw it now, too. “They’re placed vertically.”

The opening was a perfect half circle. The three vertical bricks marked off the 12, 3, and 9 o’clock positions.

“Do you think it’s significant?” Rachel said. Gray did. “It’s like half of the pagan cross.”

In the reflection off the pooled water, he could almost see the other half of the circle. He pictured completing the symbol, drawing lines to connect the stones. It would form the Druid cross they’d been following from the beginning.

“But what does it mean?” Rachel asked.”

Let me try something.”

Gray crab-crawled on his elbows back out of the niche, then reversed himself and went in on his belly, feetfirst this time. He hoped he wasn’t completely soaking himself for no reason.

Wallace called down, “Well?”

“Still working,” Gray answered in a strained voice.

He got under the entrance and examined the three bricks. The two to the side seemed nondescript and solidly mortared. Stretching up, he grabbed the top brick. It seemed no different—until his probing fingers scraped along the top lip. There was a slight indentation, perfect for a grip.

He snagged his fingers in place and tugged.

The stone pivoted out. It caught for a moment, but as he pulled harder, a metallic snap sounded behind him—followed by a grinding of rock. They both twisted and glanced over their shoulders. The back wall swung open, revealing a narrow staircase leading down.

“The entrance,” Rachel murmured near his ear. “We found it.”

It took some maneuvering to back their way through the door and into the stairwell. Though narrow, it was wide enough to stand up in.

Rachel shone her flashlight down the short flight of brick steps. “Is that a tunnel at the bottom of the stairs?”

Gray climbed down to investigate, but as his boot hit the fifth step, he felt the stair sink an inch under his weight.

Another metallic snap sounded.

His heart stopped as a single word crystallized in his mind. Trap.

Behind them, the door swung closed. Rachel yelled and leaped for the exit. She was too late. The door sealed with a distinct and final click.

She pounded on the stone door, but it was no use. They were locked in.

12:42 P.M.

Seichan heard Rachel yell—then a crack of thunder deafened everyone standing over the crypt.

As it echoed away, Wallace leaned over the hole. “Didya find something down there?”

There was no answer.

Seichan also noted that the glow of the flashlight had vanished. Something was wrong. Reacting on instinct, she tucked her arms and dropped smoothly through the narrow entrance. She landed with a splash, absorbing the impact with her knees. Her fingers already clutched her lighter. She shoved her arm into the dark niche and flicked the lighter on. The flame’s glow flickered all the way to the back of the crypt.

It was empty.

“What’s going on?” Wallace called from above. “They’re gone.”

Kowalski moved closer to the crypt, dripping wet and sullen. Lyle had gone to fetch some umbrellas. “What did I tell you … never go down a hole with Pierce.”

“It might be a good thing,” Wallace said.

Kowalski turned on him with a baleful eye.

“They must have found the secret entrance,” Wallace elaborated.

But Rachel’s cry had not been a happy one of discovery.

Seichan leaned into the crypt. She shouted with all her lung power. “Pierce! Rachel!”

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled, but Seichan made out a faint call. At least they were still alive. She climbed in farther. “I can’t understand!” she shouted.

A loud splash startled her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Wallace standing behind her, one hand on the rope. “I wouldn’t do that,” Kowalski warned from above. “Be quiet!” Seichan snapped.

She cocked her head and listened. She made out Gray’s voice. She closed her eyes, straining. His commands were clipped. She imagined him cupping his mouth and shouting.

“Just inside! A vertical brick! Above the entrance! Yank it!”

Needing both hands to search, she flipped her lighter closed and twisted her body fully into the crypt. Feeling blindly along the entrance to the crypt, fingering the bricks, she found one that fit Gray’s description. She reached to the top, discovered a carved indentation to grip, and yanked hard.

A loud snap sounded.

The back wall of the crypt swung open. She spotted the panicked face of Rachel. Gray stood at her shoulder.

“Got locked in,” Gray said. “Get the others, but be careful of the fifth step. It seals the door.”

Behind Seichan, Wallace shone his flashlight at them. “You found the way in. Brilliant! Simply brilliant!”

After a minute of wrangling, they all made it safely down the stairs to the lower tunnel. A dark stone passageway headed steeply away.

Kowalski declined to join them, calling down from above. “You go on. I’ll wait for the umbrellas.”

Off to the side, Rachel spoke. “Look at this.” She pointed her flashlight at a thick bronze lever in the floor near the foot of the stairs. “I think it might be a release to unlock that secret door.”

“Must have been how Father Giovanni came and went,” Gray said. “Still, we should keep the exit jammed open just in case.”

As a precaution, he had lodged a loose chunk of headstone from the cemetery to hold open the doorway. Seichan respected his decision. She preferred keeping a back door open in case of trouble.

Wallace pointed his flashlight down the tunnel. “Medieval monks often crafted trapdoors and hidden rooms in their abbeys and monasteries. Places were riddled with secret passageways like this. It was one of their means of hiding from marauders. Additionally, the tunnels offered a way to spy on their guests. Knowledge proved to be as much of a defense in those hard times as any shield.”

“Then let’s go see what these monks were hiding down here,” Gray said and led the way.

The others followed. Seichan stayed at the rear.

The passageway dropped steeply, but it did not take long to reach the end. The tunnel opened into a domed space. There were no other exits.

“We must be directly under the ruins of the tower,” Gray said.

Wallace ran one hand along the wall. “No chisel or pick marks. It’s a natural cavern.”

But the professor’s eyes remained focused on the middle of the chamber. A massive sarcophagus rested in the center of the room. It stood waist high and looked like it was carved out of a single block of stone.

Beyond the casket, against the far wall, stood a Celtic cross.

As the others moved toward the sarcophagus, Seichan studied the cross. It was not as ornate as the others in the abbey cemetery. This one was stark and more crudely hewn, making it seem more ancient. The only decorations were a few spirals done in bas-relief, and the cross’s circular element had been scored into tiny blocks.

Dismissing the cross, the others had turned their attentions to the stone coffin resting on the floor. The sides were featureless, its lid secured in place.

“Could it be Lord Newborough’s resting place?” Rachel asked.

Wallace leaned a hand on the lid and ran his fingers over the rough side. “Too old. If Newborough’s down here, he’s most likely buried off in one of those other sealed crypts. This is someone else’s grave. Also, the sarcophagus is made out of bluestone, same as the region’s Neolithic standing stones. It must have been quarried somewhere on the mainland and shipped all the way here. Quite an undertaking. My guess is that this is the grave of one of those ancient ring-builders, possibly one of their royalty.”

Rachel spoke. “Like the Fomorian queen?”

“Yes, our dark goddess,” Wallace said, but he suddenly became distracted.

With a frown, he leaned down. He held his flashlight against the side of the sarcophagus and cast his light across its surface. His fingers ran along the stone. “It looks like there was once a carving here. Some type of decoration, maybe even writing. But someone ground it mostly off.”

His frown deepened at such desecration.

Gray glanced up. “If this dates back to the Neolithic period, the Church could have scrubbed away the original markings.”

“Aye. That would be like them. If something didn’t mesh with their dogma, it was often destroyed. Look what happened to the Mayan codices, a vast font of ancient knowledge. The Church deemed them to be the devil’s work, and all but a few were burned.”

Seichan recognized a contradiction and moved closer. “Then why didn’t they just destroy the sarcophagus? Why go to the trouble of scouring it clean?”

Wallace answered, “If it is a grave marker, they might have respected its interment. The Church, at the time, was not above its own superstitions. They might not have wanted to disturb the bones.”

Gray voiced his own interpretation. “Or maybe what was stored here had value to them.”

“Like the Doomsday key,” Rachel said.

Seichan ignored Rachel’s glance in her direction. She merely crossed her arms.

Gray bent down and examined the lid. “It looks like it was wax-sealed at one time.” He lifted his hands and rubbed flakes from his fingers. “But somebody broke that seal.”

“It had to be Father Giovanni,” Rachel said. “Look over here.” She had moved over to the old cross and pointed at the walls to either side.

Drawn in charcoal were notations and calculations done in a crisp modern hand. It looked like Father Giovanni had measured every dimension of the cross. He’d also drawn a perfect circle around it. More lines crisscrossed it in an unfathomable pattern. To Seichan, it had a vaguely arcane look.

What was Marco doing here?

Gray studied the cross. Seichan saw the calculations going on behind his expression. If anyone could find that key, it was this man.

Gray finally turned away. Seichan suspected that a part of his mind was still working on the mystery of the cross, but he pointed over to the sarcophagus.

“If Marco broke that seal, let’s see what he discovered.”

1:03 P.M.

It took all of them to shift the lid.

How had Father Giovanni done it on his own? Gray wondered as he braced his feet and shoved. Did he have help? Or did he haul down some tools?

Still, brute force proved sufficient. With a scrape of stone on stone, they pushed the top askew but kept the lid balanced on the top.

Gray shone his flashlight down into the interior of the sarcophagus. The hollow space was hewn out of the bluestone block. He had been expecting some moldering bones, but though there was room for a body, the sarcophagus was empty.

Except for one item.

A massive book, bound in thick leather, rested in the center. It stretched a foot wide, just as thick, and two feet long. It looked perfectly preserved. Most likely the tome hadn’t been disturbed since it was first closed up and sealed with wax.

Gray reached for it.

“Careful,” Wallace warned, his voice hushed. “You don’t want to damage it. We should be wearing gloves.”

Gray hesitated, sensing the age of the text.

Despite his words of caution, Wallace waved impatiently at Gray. “What are you waiting for?”

Swallowing, Gray gingerly placed two fingers on the edge of the book. Surely Father Giovanni had already opened it at least once. As Gray lifted the heavy cover, the book’s binding, likely sinew and long dried, resisted opening.

“Gently now,” Wallace urged.

Gray pulled the cover fully open and leaned it against one wall of the stone chest. The first page was blank, but it was transparent enough to see through to the rich colors of the next page.

Wallace shifted closer. “Dear God …”

The professor reached down himself and pulled back that first page. “It’s calf vellum,” he said, pinching the paper. But his eyes grew wider as he revealed what lay below.

Under the beams of their flashlights, the ink on the next page glowed like molten jewels. Dark crimsons, golden yellows, and purples so rich they looked damp. The illustrations on the page were meticulous and dense, depicting stylized human figures tangled with knots and wrapped in intricate scrollwork. In the center of the first page, surrounded and supported by the intensity and force of the artwork, sat a crowned and bearded man on a gold throne.

It was clearly meant to represent Christ.

“It’s an illuminated manuscript,” Rachel said, awed by its beauty.

Wallace turned a few more pages. “It’s a Bible.”

His finger hovered over the crisp lines of Latin text that ran tightly over the pages. The calligraphy was ornate, with fanciful images folded into the capital letters. The pages’ margins were equally decorated with a riotous mix of mythical animals, winged children, and tangles and tangles of knots.

“The iconography reminds me of the Book of Kells,” Wallace said. “An illuminated treasure of Ireland that dates back to the eighth century. It was the result of decades of labor by sequestered monks. And that book only covered the four gospels of the New Testament.”

Wallace’s voice trembled. “I think this book is the entire Bible.” He shook his head. “If so, it’s priceless beyond imagination.”

“Then why was it left here?” Seichan asked. Even she had drawn closer to see the book.

Wallace could only shake his head. But he carefully pulled back a few more leaves of the Bible, and an answer appeared.

The turn of a page revealed a gaping hole in the center of the book. The hole sliced straight through the pages and formed a cubby three inches square and one deep.

Wallace gasped at the destruction.

Gray leaned closer. The hole was plainly meant to hold something, to keep it hidden and preserved. Without turning, Gray held his hand out to Rachel. She reached to a pocket inside her coat.

They all knew what must once have been hidden there.

A moment later, Rachel placed the leather artifact in Gray’s palm. The satchel looked to be made out of the same leather that bound the book. He held the object over the cubby. It fit perfectly into the hole.

“Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but left the Bible,” Gray said, picturing the mummified finger inside the pouch. “Why?”

The one word held many questions.

Wallace added another. “Why didn’t Marco tell anybody about this?”

“Maybe he did,” Seichan said coldly. “To be hunted and murdered, he had to have told someone.”

“She’s right,” Gray realized. “Maybe Marco didn’t reveal all he knew—like the discovery of the Bible—but he told someone enough to get himself killed.”

“Oh, God …” Wallace suddenly blurted.

Gray turned to him.

“About two years ago, Marco contacted me. He needed money to continue his travels. I told him that my sponsor, the Viatus Corporation, might be willing to finance any ancillary research connected to my dig. I gave him my contact’s name. A head researcher there. Magnussen was her name.”

Seichan stiffened beside Gray, but she remained silent.

“But I never heard back from Marco after that.” Wallace looked sickened. “I assumed he never bothered. I forgot about it until now. Oh, God, I may have led him directly to his killers.”

Gray ran the scenario through his head. It made sense. Viatus would have hired Marco, especially if he had proposed looking for a potential counteragent to whatever killed those mummies. How could they say no? But then somewhere along the way, Marco found something that frightened him enough to make a run for Rome, to meet with Vigor Verona, to expose all he knew. His employers must have grown wise to what he was planning and taken him out.

Wallace held a hand pressed over his mouth, still shocked. With his other hand, he pushed the loose pages back over the hole in the Bible, hiding the book’s violation as if that might lessen his own guilt.

Rachel spoke as she accepted the satchel back from Gray. “Father Giovanni stole the artifact, but the bigger questions are who left it here to begin with and why?”

Her words drew them back to the heart of the mystery. Her life depended on discovering those answers.

“I may be able to answer the question of who left the Bible,” Wallace said and took a deep breath to steady himself.

Gray turned to the man, surprised. “Who?”

“Possibly the owner of the Bible.”

Wallace pointed back to the book, toward the inside surface of the leather cover. A page of vellum had been glued there.

Earlier, Gray had been too focused on the book’s contents to note the one page shadowed by the cover. He examined it now. It was as densely illuminated as the rest of the work, but the content centered on a stylized name, possibly the owner of the priceless book.

Wallace read the name so dramatically illustrated. “Mael Maedoc Ua Morgair.”

The name meant nothing to Gray. His lack of knowledge must have been plain on his face.

“You can’t live in these parts without knowing that name,” Wallace explained. “Especially in my profession.”

“Who is it?”

“One of the most famous of Irish saints, second only to Saint Patrick. His given name was Mael Maedoc, but Latinized it’s Malachy.”

“Saint Malachy,” Rachel said, clearly recognizing the name.

“Who was he?” Gray asked.

“He was born about the same year as the Doomsday Book was written.” Wallace let the significance of that sink in before he continued. “He started out as the abbot of Bangor but grew to become archbishop. He spent much of his time on pilgrimages.”

“So he most likely came here?”

Wallace nodded. “Malachy was an interesting man, kind of a reluctant archbishop. He preferred to travel, mingling with both the pagans and the pious of the region, spreading the word of the gospels. He moved easily between both worlds and eventually brokered a lasting peace between the Church and those who adhered to the old ways.”

Gray recalled Wallace’s earlier belief that the last of the pagans waged a final war against Christendom, possibly using the bioweapon acquired from the ancients. “Do you think a part of that brokered peace might have been knowledge of the plague and its cure, the proverbial key to the Doomsday Book?”

“His fingerprints are definitely here.” Wallace gestured toward the book. “Then there’s also the reason Malachy was canonized, why he was considered worthy of being made a saint.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ah, now there’s the rub,” Wallace said. “Malachy was known throughout his life for the miracle of healing. A long litany of miraculous cures is attributed to this saint.”

“Just like the history of Bardsey Island,” Gray said.

“But I also recall another story told about Malachy. From my own bonny Scotland. Malachy came traipsing through Annandale and asked the lord of the land there to spare the life of a pickpocket. The lord agreed, but ended up hanging the thief. Outraged, Malachy cursed him—and not only did the lord die, but so did everyone in his household.”

Wallace glanced significantly at Gray.

“Healing and curses,” Gray mumbled.

“It sounds like Malachy learned something from his new Druid friends, something the Church decided to keep secret out here.”

Rachel interrupted. “But you skipped over what Malachy was best known for.”

“Ah, you mean the prophecies,” Wallace said with a roll of his eyes.

“What prophesies?”

Rachel answered, “The prophecies of the popes. It’s said that on a pilgrimage to Rome, Malachy fell into a trance and had a vision of all the popes from his time to the end of the world. He dutifully wrote them all down.”

“Bloody nonsense,” Wallace countered. “The story goes that the Church supposedly found Malachy’s book in their archives some four hundred years after the man died. Likely the book was a forgery.”

“And some claim it was just a copy of Malachy’s original text. Either way, the descriptions of each pope have over the centuries proved to be oddly accurate. Take the last two popes. Malachy describes John Paul II as De Labore Solis. Or translated, ‘From the toil of the sun.’ He was born during a solar eclipse. And then there’s the current pope, Benedict XVI. Described as De Gloria Olivae. ‘The Glory of the Olive.’ And the symbol for the Benedictine order is the olive branch.”

Wallace lifted a hand dismissively. “Just people reading too much into cryptic snippets of Latin.”

Rachel turned to Gray for understanding. “But what’s most disturbing of all is that the current pope is number one hundred and eleven on Malachy’s list. The very next pope—Petrus Romanus—is the last pope, according to the prophecy. That pope will serve when the world comes to an end.”

“Then we’re all doomed,” Seichan said, voicing as much skepticism as Wallace.

“Well, I certainly am,” Rachel spat back, silencing her. “Unless we find that damned key.”

Gray kept silent. He avoided weighing in on the matter. But Rachel was right about one thing. They needed to find that key. As he stood, he contemplated the significance of finding this dead saint’s Bible sitting in a pagan sarcophagus. And more important—

“Do you think it was Saint Malachy’s finger inside that Bible?” Gray asked.

“No,” Wallace said firmly. “This sarcophagus is too old. Much too old. My guess is that it dates to the time of Stonehenge. Someone was buried here, but not Malachy.”

“Then who?” Gray asked.

Wallace shrugged. “Like I said, possibly some Neolithic royalty. Perhaps that dark pagan queen. Nonetheless, I suspect that finger bone is all that’s left of whoever was first buried here.”

“Why do you think that?”

“And where’s the rest of the body?” Rachel added.

“Moved. Probably by the Church. Maybe by Malachy himself. But they left the bone here as was traditional back then. It was a sin to move a body from its resting place unless you left a small piece behind.”

“A relic of that person,” Rachel said with a nod. “So they can continue to rest in peace. Uncle Vigor talked about that once. It was considered sacrilegious to do otherwise.”

Gray stared into the sarcophagus. “Malachy used his own Bible to preserve the relic. He must have believed that whoever was buried here was worthy of that honor.”

Gray also remembered Father Rye’s description of Marco on the day he returned from the island all upset. The young priest had spent the night praying for forgiveness. Was it because he stole the relic, thereby desecrating a grave that had been sanctified by a saint of his own Church? And if so, what possessed him to do that? Why did he think it was so important?

Rachel raised another question of significance. “Why was the body even moved?”

Wallace offered one explanation. “Perhaps to keep safe whatever was hidden here. During Malachy’s time, England and Ireland were under constant attack by wave after wave of Viking raiders. The island, with no fortifications, would have been especially vulnerable.”

Gray nodded. “And if this crypt was where the key was kept, it must be somehow tied to the body interred here. So to preserve the knowledge, both the body and the key had to be moved to a safer location.”

“But what the hell is this key?” Seichan asked. “What are we even looking for?”

Gray looked toward the only other clue left to them by Father Giovanni. He moved over to the wall and studied the charcoal notations next to the cross. He laid a hand on the wall. What had Marco been trying to figure out?

The others gathered behind him.

He looked up at the Celtic cross. Only now did he realize something. “The cross,” he said, running his fingers down it. “It’s made out of the same stone as the sarcophagus. It even feels scoured like the crypt.”

Wallace stepped closer. “You’re right.”

Gray turned to him. “This wasn’t put here by Malachy or some other pious Christian to mark the grave.”

“It was already here.”

Gray looked at the cross with new eyes, not seeing it as a Christian symbol but a pagan one. Did it offer some clue to what the key actually was? From the notations on the wall, Father Giovanni had been trying to figure something out.

Needing to know more, Gray pointed his light at the bottom of the cross. “The set of three spirals near the base of the cross. Is there any special significance to them?”

Wallace moved over to join Gray and Rachel. “It’s called a tri-spiral. But it’s actually not three spirals. Only one. See how the three of them join and blend to form one sinuous pattern. This same triple pattern can be found marked on ancient standing stones across Europe. And like many pagan symbols, the Church appropriated this one, too. To the Celtic people, it represented eternal life. But to the Church, it was the perfect representation for the Holy Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. All entwined together. The three who are one.”

Gray moved his gaze up to the single spiral that sat in the middle of the cross, like the hub of a wheel.

He remembered Painter’s original briefing about the symbol. How the pagan cross and spiral were often found together, one overlapping the other. The cross was a symbol for Earth. And the spiral marked the soul’s journey, rising from this world to the next, like a curl of smoke.

Gray’s attention shifted to Father Giovanni’s markings drawn on the wall. He sensed some meaning behind the notations and lines. He could almost grasp it, but it remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Stepping closer, Gray put down his flashlight and reached to the circular section on the cross. He ran his fingertips across the scored markings.

Like spokes on a wheel.

As the thought popped into his head, he was still staring at the spiral in the center of the cross. He had compared it earlier to a wheel hub. It even looked like it was turning.

Then suddenly he knew.

Maybe he had sensed it from the beginning, but he couldn’t get past the Christian symbolism. Now, considering the cross anew and pushing aside preconceptions, he recognized what was nagging at him.

“It is a wheel,” he realized.

Reaching more firmly, he grasped the stone circle and turned it counterclockwise, in the direction of the curl of the spiral.

It moved!

As he turned the wheel, his eyes shifted to the calculations drawn on the wall. The cross hid a clue about the key, but to unlock it you had to know the proper code. The wheel must act like a combination lock, protecting some hidden vault where the key was once stored.

From all the calculations on the wall, Marco had been working on that proper sequence, trying to figure out the numbers to the combination.

Unfortunately, Gray realized something too late.

You only got one guess at the combination.

And he got it wrong.

A loud boom shook the ground under his feet. The floor suddenly dropped from under him. He grabbed for the cross and hooked his fingers onto the crossbar. Looking over a shoulder as he hung, he watched the back half of the chamber floor rise up. The entire floor was tilting—tipping away from the only exit.

The others screamed and scrambled to brace themselves.

The stone lid slid off the sarcophagus, skittered across the tilted floor, and toppled into the gaping hole under Gray’s feet. His flashlight had already rolled into the pit. Its shine revealed a bottom covered in vicious bronze spikes, all pointed up.

The stone lid crashed and shattered against them.

Behind Gray, the floor continued to tip, going vertical, trying to dump everyone below.

Wallace and Rachel had managed to get behind the sarcophagus and brace themselves. The coffin remained in place, anchored to the floor. Seichan couldn’t reach the refuge in time. She went sliding toward the pit.

Rachel lunged out with an arm and caught the back of her jacket as she slid past. She pulled Seichan close enough so the woman could grab the edge of the sarcophagus.

Rachel continued to hold her. At the precarious moment, each woman depended on the other for her life.

As the floor tilted to full vertical, Seichan hung like Gray.

But Gray had no one holding him.

His fingers slipped, and he plummeted toward the spikes.

22
October 13, 1:13 P.M.
Svalbard, Norway

The warhead detonated on schedule.

Even hidden behind two steel doors and walls of bedrock, Painter felt the blast as if a giant had his hands over his ears, trying to crush his skull. And yet he still heard the other two seed banks’ air locks blow. From the concussive sound of it, the same giant had stamped his foot and crushed the other chambers flat.

Crouched beside their air lock, Painter heard the outer door give way and slam into the inner one with a resounding clang. But the last door held. The overpressure in the air lock had been enough to hold off the sudden blast wave.

Painter touched the steel door with relief. Its surface was warm, heated by the thermobaric’s secondary flash fire.

The lights had also been snuffed out by the blast. But the group had prepared for that. Flashlights had been passed out, and they flickered on across the chamber like candles in the dark.

“We made it,” Senator Gorman said at his side.

His voice sounded tinny to Painter’s strained ears. The others began picking themselves up off the floor. Cries of relief, even a few nervous laughs, spread through the assembled guests and workers.

Painter hated to be the bearer of the bad news, but they had no time for false hope.

He stood up and lifted his arm. “Quiet!” he called out and gained everyone’s attention. “We’re not out of here yet! We still don’t know if the explosion was enough to break through the wall of ice trapping us down here. If we’re still stuck, rescue could take days.”

Painter motioned to the vault’s maintenance engineer for confirmation. He lived up here. He knew the terrain and the archipelago’s resources.

“It could take well over a week,” he said. “And that’s if the road is still open.”

That was doubtful, considering the missile barrage Painter had heard. But he kept that to himself. The news was bad enough already. And he had more to deliver.

Painter pointed to the door. “The firestorm will have burned away most of the available oxygen and turned the air toxic out there. Even if the exit is open, these lower levels will still be choked with bad air. We’re in the only safe pocket down here. But it will only last for a couple of days, maybe three.”

The engineer looked like he was going to shorten that projection, but Painter stemmed that with a hand on his arm. Painter also avoided telling the group the real reason for his haste.

Whoever attacked could come back.

The crowd had gone completely quiet as the sobering news sank in.

Karlsen finally spoke from the edge of the crowd. These were mostly his guests. “So what do we do?”

“Someone has to go out there. To check the door. If it’s open, they’re going to have to make a long run through a toxic soup. Someone needs to get out and bring back help. The rest will stay here where it’s safe for the moment.”

“Who’s going to go out there?” Senator Gorman asked.

Painter lifted his hand. “I am.”

Karlsen stepped forward. “Not alone you’re not. I’ll go with you. You may need an extra pair of hands.”

He was right. Painter didn’t know what he might encounter out there. There could be a partial cave-in, a tangle of damaged equipment. It might take a couple of people to move an obstacle. But he eyed Karlsen with skepticism. He was not a young man.

Karlsen read the doubt in his face. “I ran a half marathon two months ago. I jog daily. I won’t hold you back.”

The senator joined him. “Then I’m going, too.”

Clearly Gorman was not letting the murderer of his son out of his sight. And truth be told, Painter didn’t want to either. He had a slew of questions for the man, questions that might prove vital to avoiding an ecological disaster.

Still, he preferred both men to stay here.

But Karlsen raised a point that Painter couldn’t counter. He gestured toward the door. “It’s not up for debate. Whether you like it or not, you can’t stop me from following you. I’m going.”

Gorman stood shoulder to shoulder with the man on this matter. “We’re both going.”

Painter didn’t have time to argue. He had no authority to have Karlsen handcuffed to one of the racks. In fact, Karlsen had more supporters here than Painter did.

“Then let’s go.” Painter took one of the flashlights. He used a canteen to wet some scarves and wrap their lower faces, covering mouths and noses. “Try to hold your breath as much as possible.”

They nodded.

The engineer had also secured sets of safety goggles to protect their eyes from the sting of the heated, smoky air.

They were as prepared as they could be.

Once ready, Painter stood by the door. He left the maintenance engineer in charge. If they failed, the man had the knowledge to keep the others safe for as long as possible.

“When I open the door, the pressure is now higher in here than out there. It will suck away some of the oxygen. So close this as soon as we leave and don’t open it unless we come knocking. If the way is blocked, we’ll be right back. If not, pray for the best.”

“I’ve not stopped praying since I saw that bomb,” the engineer said with a weak grin.

Painter clapped him on the shoulder and turned to Gorman and Karlsen. “Ready?” he asked.

He got two nods.

Painter turned to the engineer. “Open it.” Then to his two companions. “Take a deep breath.”

The door cracked open with a disturbing hissing of escaping air and a wash of incredible heat. Painter dashed through it and into the dark tunnel. It was like diving into a sauna. But this steam burned the skin with more than just heat. Painter felt the chemical sting. The air out here was worse than he had imagined.

He heard the other men pounding behind him.

Once Painter rounded out of the seed bank passageway and into the main tunnel, he flicked off his flashlight. He held his breath both literally and figuratively.

Had the entrance been blown open?

He stared ahead into the pitch-black tunnel. He saw no evidence of any light shining back. The tunnel was a straight run. if the way was open, even a little light should stand out like a beacon.

His feet began to slow.

It hadn’t worked. They were still trapped in this poisonous well.

But after a few more blind steps, his eyes adjusted more fully to the darkness as the flashlight’s dazzle faded. It wasn’t much, but far up the tunnel a meager glow shone back through the smoky darkness.

He let slip a small sigh of relief, allowing precious air to escape his lungs.

As hope ignited inside him, he flicked on his light and ran faster. He didn’t know if Gorman or Karlsen had seen the promising glow, but they knew the plan. If there hadn’t been any sign of light, they were supposed to head back. Since Painter continued, they knew what that meant.

They all sped faster, running through the ruined catering area. Tables were overturned and slammed into the tunnel’s end. Anything plastic had melted. The line of ice sculptures had been vaporized. Anything combustible had been set on fire, but the consumption of oxygen by the thermobaric charge had just as quickly smothered the fires.

Residual smoke still hung dead in the air, but the farther they ran, the less dense it grew. A fine black powder covered everything, a by-product of the flash of fluorinated aluminum.

They ran onward.

Painter was forced to take his first breath. He pressed the damp scarf to his nose and sucked in a gulp of air. It stank of burned rubber and stung like acid. He didn’t know how much oxygen was still in the air, but he kept running. The higher he got, the cleaner the air would be—especially with the ice plug broken away.

He reached about the halfway point, only another seventy-five yards to go. He could now see a faint glow even with his flashlight on. It drew him forward. But the more he was forced to breathe, the more the tunnel began to waver, shimmering a bit before his watering eyes. His lungs burned. His skin itched all over.

Still he did not slow.

He glanced behind him and saw the other two men falling behind. Senator Gorman looked the worst, weaving on his feet. Karlsen had a grip on his elbow and kept him steady, propelling the senator along.

Painter slowed to help. He needed both men alive.

But Karlsen waved an arm angrily at him, his command clear.

Keep going.

Painter realized he was right. He had to get out of this toxic soup, clear his head. If necessary, he could come back for them. With no other choice, he sped toward the glow and the promise of fresh air.

Finally the blast door appeared, bathed in a bluish glow. A few brighter spots stung Painter’s eyes. But as he ran forward, his heart sank.

It can’t be…

The door was still blocked.

The glow was only daylight diffusing through the ice. The blast had failed to free them. Painter ran toward the exit anyway. There was nowhere else to go. As he drew closer, he realized that some of the brighter spots in the wall were chinks in the blockage.

Hope surged again and was enough to propel him to the doorway. He crossed to one of those chinks, pressed his face against it, and sucked in air. If nothing else, it was deliciously cool. He took several breaths. His head immediately began clearing, the fogginess shredding away.

He turned and saw Karlsen and Gorman about fifteen yards away. Karlsen was now half-carrying the senator. Painter shoved off the wall of ice and hurried back. He supported Gorman’s other side.

Together, they hobbled the rest of the way to the door. Painter got both men breathing through cracks in the wall, then found a third spot higher up. As he sucked air, he realized that the ice wall wasn’t covered in black soot. This was new ice. The blast must have unplugged the entrance—but a secondary avalanche had tumbled back over it, resealing them in.

But the ice wouldn’t be as thick.

Painter put an eye to the crack. He could see out.

Near the top of the door, the blockage was less than two feet thick, made up of a jumble of blocks. They were large, but with time, they might be able to dig themselves out.

Still, Painter sensed they didn’t have much time. No telling when another avalanche might surge down from above and seal them in tighter.

As if hearing this thought, Painter heard a rumble.

He felt the ice shiver under his cheek.

Oh, no …

1:20 P.M.

From across the valley, Monk had watched the explosion. The noise was like a thunderclap inside his head. Startled, deafened, he was knocked on his butt in the snow.

Creed and the two Norwegians fared no better.

A massive eruption of ice and flames had burst out of the buried seed vault. An oily blackness roiled up into the sky.

As if offended, the storm clouds suddenly opened. Snow fell thickly. One second it wasn’t snowing, the next, heavy windblown flakes filled the air. It worsened to a whiteout condition in a matter of half a minute. But before the curtain dropped, Monk saw that the explosion had exposed the concrete bunker—at least for a few seconds. A moment later, a second avalanche had slid and tumbled over the entrance.

Was anyone still alive in there?

A pair of gunshots echoed, coming from the lower mountain. Monk could no longer see the trundling force of mercenaries, but they were still coming, still cleaning house.

If anyone had survived that underground blast, they wouldn’t be alive for long.

Monk had only one choice.

It took Creed’s help, but he finally convinced the Norwegians.

1:21 P.M.

As the rumble grew and the ice shook, Painter prayed the avalanche wouldn’t be a large one. But the rumbling grew in volume.

Then, out of the blanket of snow and wind, a Sno-Cat shot into view, rising up from below. It did not slow and sped straight at them.

“Get back!” Painter yelled.

He shoved Gorman away from the doorway, then grabbed Karlsen by the hood of his parka and flung them both bodily away from the wall of ice.

And not a second too soon.

The heavy vehicle struck the blocked doorway. Its front treads rode up the ice wall. The bumper cracked into the top half of the doorway. Ice blocks shattered into the tunnel and slid away.

The Sno-Cat backed up, likely readying itself for a second run.

Painter dashed forward. The bumper had broken a hole large enough for Painter to slide his body through. Diving into the jagged gap, he clawed and elbowed his way through the door.

The Sno-Cat suddenly halted its retreat.

The passenger door popped open. A familiar figure leaned out.

“Director Crowe?” Monk said, his face raw with relief.

“Monk … you are a sight for sore eyes.” And Painter’s eyes were sore—bloodshot and inflamed.

“I get that a lot,” Monk said. “But we should get moving.”

Painter turned. Karlsen clambered out of the hole, followed by the senator. “There are more people locked up down below.”

“And that’s where they should stay.” Monk hopped out, reached back inside, and came out with an armload of rifles. “Can you shoot?” he asked the other two men.

Both Gorman and Karlsen nodded.

“Good, because we need as much firepower as we can muster.”

“Why?” Painter asked.

Before Monk could answer, the distant grumble of a heavy engine echoed out of the storm.

“We’ve got company coming.”

Painter joined Monk over at the Sno-Cat and took a rifle. He noted that the vehicle held only one man, a Norwegian soldier. He searched around.

“Where’s Creed?” Painter asked.

“Left with this soldier’s buddy on our snowmobiles. They’ve gone for help.”

Painter hoped they made it back in time with the cavalry. He assessed the group left to defend the fort. One vehicle and four men.

The Alamo had better odds … and look how that turned out.

23
October 13, 1:32 P.M.
Bardsey Island, Wales

Rachel almost dropped Seichan when she saw Gray fall from his perch. He slid down the face of the cross and caught himself on the tri-spiral bas-relief that decorated the lower leg of the cross.

He scrambled for a moment, then laced his fingers over the top of the symbol sticking out. Would it hold his weight or break away?

The same worry must have crossed his mind. He kept his body from moving too much. His boots hung over a twenty-foot drop into a pit lined by spikes.

But Gray wasn’t the only one threatened.

Rachel slid across the upended side of the sarcophagus. “Hold my legs!” she shouted back to Wallace.

The professor shared her perch on the stone coffin. He clung as precariously as she did. He grabbed her ankles and helped stabilize her.

It gave Rachel some slight reassurance but not much.

She hung over the side of the sarcophagus. She had a grip on Seichan’s jacket. The woman who poisoned her clung with only her fingertips to the edge of the coffin.

Neither of them could hold out much longer.

A small quake shuddered through the chamber. The apparatus was ancient. Triggering it must have upset whatever fragile balance had been established over the centuries. She pictured the ruins of the tower above. It might all come down.

Another shake rattled through the tilted floor. From inside the sarcophagus, Malachy’s Bible tumbled out. It fell into the pit and was speared through the middle, impaled on one of the spikes.

Wallace groaned at the loss, but they had more immediate concerns.

Bobbled by the quaking, Seichan lost her grip. She fell without making a sound, as if she expected it, deserved it. One of Rachel’s hands lost its grip, but her other fist remained twisted in Seichan’s coat.

She stopped the woman’s plunge with a wrench of her shoulder. But the weight dragged her over the edge of the sarcophagus. Only Wallace’s grip on her ankles stopped them both from a deadly plunge.

Rachel’s upper body hung upside down, her hips and legs remaining atop the coffin, pinned by Wallace. It was hard to breathe. Seichan dangled below, hanging from her coat. Her only sign of fear was how tightly she clutched that coat to her neck with both hands.

Rachel wanted to let her go, but the woman was her only lifeline.

The floor shook again. A piece of the cavern roof broke away. A large slab dropped, and shattered against the spikes.

She closed her eyes and prayed for some way out.

Her angelic answer came from the most unlikely of sources.

“What the fuck!”

The shout came from the other side of the tilted floor, where the tunnel led up to Lord Newborough’s crypt.

It was Kowalski. He must have come down either out of impatience or because he had heard the booby trap being sprung.

“Help!” Rachel yelled, but with her chest stretched and her belly squeezed, it came out as a squeak.

“Hello!” Kowalski called. Plainly he hadn’t heard her.

Gray bellowed as he hung. “Kowalski!”

“Pierce? Where are you? All I see is a pit and a blank wall. How did you all get across?”

From Kowalski’s vantage point in the tunnel, all he must see was the underside of the fake floor—and the pit.

Gray yelled again. “Go back and pull the bar!”

“Pull my what?” He sounded offended.

“The lever! Up the tunnel!”

“Oh, okay! Hang on!”

Rachel stared down at Seichan, then over to Gray. Hang on. That’s all they could do.

“Hurry!” Gray called out. He had begun to slip again.

Kowalski’s voice came back fainter. “Quit nagging me!”

Rachel clung as tightly as she could. She closed her eyes and pictured the bar sticking out of the floor. She had spotted it earlier. It made sense that there would be a reset button for this trap. While the mechanism might kill any thieves who stumbled down here, the engineers of the trap would have needed a way to reset it. Otherwise, they’d be cut off from the key, too. Some sort of reset had to lie outside the chamber.

But was it the lever?

She prayed Gray’s intuition was right.

She had her answer a moment later.

The entire floor suddenly vibrated. A great grinding of gears shook through the room. The floor began to tilt again—but the wrong way. It started to rotate upside down. Rachel dared not even scream as her body began to slip across the stone. They were going to flip over.

Then something caught. The floor stopped with a stomach-jarring jolt. With a harsher grinding of gears, the floor slowly reversed itself. It swung back in the proper direction.

Rachel clung hard, her lips moving as she said the Lord’s Prayer.

She watched the floor’s edge rise under Gray’s toes and push him back up. She rolled off the side of the sarcophagus and onto the leveling floor. They all lay flat, breathing hard. Even Gray slumped to his rear beside the cross.

Kowalski came back with a flashlight. “If you’re done playing down here …”

Rachel glared in his direction.

“I came to tell you that the storm’s getting fierce. Lyle says we better move it if we want to get off this godforsaken island.”

Before anyone could move or respond, another section of the roof crashed down, striking the floor like a bomb. Water and a flow of bricks came next. The tower was coming down on top of them.

“Out!” Gray yelled.

They all shot to their feet and ran for the exit. A resounding snap jolted the entire floor. It began to wobble, teeter-tottering as something broke in the ancient mechanism.

Off balance, Rachel tumbled to the side, but Gray caught her around the waist and rushed with her toward the tunnel. They all flew into it as more of the cavern imploded.

A last glance showed the floor tilted askew as a waterfall of bricks and rain flooded into the room. Then she was too far up the tunnel to see any more. A moment later, an earthshaking crash chased them. A flume of rock dust rolled up the tunnel and over them.

Coughing, they reached the exit and climbed up, one after the other, back into the storm. Up top, a stunned Lyle offered them umbrellas.

Rachel took one, but she kept her face turned up toward the sky. She let rainwater wash over her.

We made it, Rachel thought.

1:42 P.M.

Gray stared over at the wreckage of the abbey tower. It was now only a tumbled pile of rubble sunk halfway into the ground. Water had already begun to pool around it.

The cavern was surely gone.

A roar rose behind him as Lyle started the tractor. The storm wailed—the winds had picked up while they’d been down there. Rain pelted out of the sky, whipping horizontal at times as the winds swept off the Irish Sea and across the island. Even the lightning had grown more subdued, as if cowed by the growing intensity of the storm.

They loaded up into the trailer for the ride back over the hill to the harbor. Lyle hunched in his seat and pushed the tractor into gear. The trailer lurched as it began to move.

They all crouched low, trying to keep out of the rain and the wind.

Wallace gazed back at the fallen ruins of Saint Mary’s Abbey. “First rule of archaeology,” he said, then glanced sidelong at Gray. “Don’t touch anything.”

Gray did not blame the professor for scolding him. He had acted without properly considering the dangers. He had been so shocked to discover that the cross predated Christianity, that the wheel component actually turned. He leaped before looking. Unlike Father Giovanni. Judging by all the priest’s calculations, he had gone after the puzzle in a systematic and studied way.

But then again, the priest had been trained as an archaeologist. And Father Giovanni didn’t have a woman’s life hanging in the balance.

His group had only another two days to solve this mystery. Gray wouldn’t apologize for pushing their investigation hard, for taking chances, for eschewing caution to get results.

Still, as he pictured the painstaking notations and calculations done by Father Giovanni, he knew there was something he was still missing. The more he tried to pin it down, the more it slipped away.

Wallace shook his head. “Just think what we might have learned if we’d had more time with that cross …”

Gray heard the accusation behind his words. The man’s usual joviality had been worn away by exhaustion, terror, and not a small amount of disappointment. With one mistake, they’d destroyed a priceless illuminated treasure and lost access to whatever the cross had kept hidden.

“What if the key is still down there?” Wallace asked pointedly.

Gray had had enough. “You don’t believe that. And neither do I.” The words came out more harshly than he intended, but he was tired, too.

“How can you be so sure?” Wallace asked.

“Because Father Giovanni left. He continued his search. I think he solved the riddle of the cross, found an empty vault that once held the key, then moved on, taking the one object he needed to continue his search.”

“The relic from the grave,” Rachel said.

Gray stared out into the storm. “The key is still out there. I don’t think the cross offered Father Giovanni that much help. So he moved on, just as we must.”

“But where?” Wallace asked. “Where do we even begin to look? We’re right back where we started.” “No, we’re not,” Gray said. “How can you say that?”

He ignored the professor’s question and turned to Rachel. “How did you know so much about Saint Malachy?”

She shifted on the floorboards, clearly caught by surprise. “It was Uncle Vigor. The prophecies intrigued him. He could talk for hours about Saint Malachy.”

Gray had suspected as much. Monsignor Verona had always been passionate about the mysteries of the early Church, seeking truths behind miracles. Such a figure as Malachy would have captured both his attention and his imagination.

“That’s why Father Giovanni sought out your uncle,” Gray said. “He knew the key to solving this mystery lay in the life of that saint. So Giovanni went to the best source he knew.”

“Vigor Verona.” Wallace sat straighter, ignoring the wind and rain.

“Maybe Marco knew about the plot by Viatus, or maybe he just had an inkling. But I suspect that the further he delved into this matter of curses and miracles, the more he knew he was in over his head. That he needed the expertise and protection of the Church behind him.”

Seichan added her own bleak viewpoint from the back of the trailer. “But he sought them out too late. Someone knew of his plan.”

Gray nodded. “If we’re going to discover where the Doomsday key was hidden, we’re going to need an expert on Saint Malachy.”

“But Verona is still in a coma,” Wallace said.

“It doesn’t matter. We have someone who knows just as much.” He turned to Rachel.

“Me?”

“You’re going to have to help us from here.”

“How?”

“Because I know where the key is hidden.”

Wallace looked hard at him. “What? … Where?”

“Malachy’s Bible was left in that sarcophagus for a reason. More than just to sanctify a relic. It was left behind as a symbol, a bread crumb to lead to the key’s new resting place. Prior to the coming of the Romans, the key and the grave of this ancient royal were always kept together. They were bound together. And in the sarcophagus, we discovered Malachy’s Bible binding a relic of this ancient person, binding it to him.”

“So what are you saying?” Wallace pressed him.

“I think Saint Malachy has taken the place of this ancient. That he’s become the proverbial keeper of the key.”

Wallace’s eyes grew wide. “If you’re right, then the key …”

“It’s in Saint Malachy’s tomb.”

Kowalski groaned and picked at a fingernail with a piece of straw. “Of course it is. But I’m telling you flat out, I’m not going in there.”

Before they could discuss it further, the trailer jerked to a stop. Gray was surprised to see that they’d already reached the harbor.

Lyle hopped down and waved them out. “You can hole up in the old harbor house. Get yourselves out of the rain, right enough. I’ll fetch my da.”

As Gray hurried down the path toward the stone house, he stared out to sea. The waters rolled with frothing whitecaps. Closer at hand, the ferry rocked and teetered in its slip, even sheltered within the harbor’s breakwater. It was going to be a hellish ride back over to the mainland.

But for now, the windows of the harbor house glowed and flickered with the promise of a crackling fire. They all piled through the door, shutting out the storm behind them. The room was paneled in raw pine, with heavy exposed beams. The floor creaked underfoot. The place smelled of wood smoke and pipe tobacco. Candles lit a few tables. But it was the fire that drew them all deeper inside. They gladly shed their coats over a few chairs.

Gray stood with his back to the fire, appreciating the heat from his heels to the top of his head. The warmth and the cheery dance of flames went a long way to beat back the hopelessness that had begun to settle over them.

But now they had a course of action.

A place to look next.

The door slammed open as the wind ripped the knob from Owen Bryce’s fingers. He caught it again and forced it closed. Drenched, he stomped and shook off the worst of the rainwater.

“It’s parky weather out, that’s for sure,” the boatman said with a crooked grin at his understatement. “And I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad.”

Such a preamble never boded well.

Gray stepped away from the fire.

“The bad news is that we won’t be able to make the crossing today. The storm has blown the seas into a treacherous state. If’n you didn’t know, the Welsh name for the island is Ynys Enlli, which means ‘island of bad currents.’ And that’s on a sunny day.”

“So what’s the good news?” Kowalski asked.

“I’ve checked and I can get you rooms here for the night at half off. Good for the entire week.”

Gray felt his stomach sink. “How soon do you expect we can make it off the island?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. Electricity and phones are down all over the island. We have to get the all-clear from the harbormaster in Aberdaron before we can even think of throwing off our ties here.”

“Your best estimate?”

“We had some tourists here last year that got stranded for seventeen days due to storms.”

Gray waited for the answer to his question. He looked sternly at the man.

Owen finally relented, running a hand over the top of his head. “I’m sure we can get you back to Aberdaron in two days. Three days tops.”

Off to the side, Rachel sank into one of the chairs.

She didn’t have that many days.

24
October 13, 1:35 P.M.
Svalbard, Norway

Monk lay flat across the roof of the Sno-Cat as it trundled through the snowstorm. Painter shared his perch. They were both tethered to the roof rack like luggage. The harder gusts of wind continually fought to rip them from the roof. Snow frosted them like icing on a cake.

Each man had an assault rifle snugged to his shoulder, and the Norwegian soldier had supplied them both with one additional piece of gear, essential for cold-weather fighting.

Monk adjusted the infrared goggles on his face. They darkened the view ahead. Not that it mattered—the blizzard’s whiteout conditions had lowered visibility to mere yards. But the scopes built into the eyepieces captured any ambient heat signatures and brought them into focus. Below their perch, the hot engine of their Sno-Cat glowed a soft orange.

Out in the storm, their targets came into view. Seven or eight snowmobiles crisscrossed up from the lower mountain slopes, glowing a soft amber through the scopes. The vehicles were just now cresting into the upper valley where Monk had spent much of his time spying on the Svalbard seed vault.

It was here that Monk and the others would make their stand, using every resource available to them.

Monk patted a hand on the rocket-propelled grenade launcher next to him. Before setting out, they had scoured the avalanche’s path for additional weapons and found the launcher. Along with a wooden box of ammunition.

Below, the senator and the CEO shared the cab with the Norwegian soldier, manning rifles. One pointed out the passenger side, the other out the rear.

They were armed to the teeth, but their enemy outnumbered them at least ten to one.

As the advance team of the assault party rode into the valley on snowmobiles, the Norwegian driver lunged their vehicle to the side. He was doing his best to keep a snowbank between the Cat and the smaller, faster snow machines.

Through the goggles, Monk watched a pair of snowmobiles, double mounted by mercenary soldiers, skim past far to the right. The enemy failed to spot the Cat half-hidden behind the snowbank, suggesting that the enemy either didn’t have infrared or were too focused on the seed vault ahead.

Monk and Painter let them pass without firing.

The smaller vehicles were not their primary target.

More snowmobiles shot past with a whining rip of their engines, deafening the riders to the low rumble of the Sno-Cat. Ahead, a massive vehicle loomed into view. Its heat signature was nearly blinding. It rose up out of the lower slopes and dropped heavily into the upper valley.

It was a Hagglund troop carrier.

The main body of the assault force remained inside that vehicle. It had to be taken out. Their Sno-Cat was no match for the swifter snowmobiles, but against this behemoth, the Sno-Cat would be the nimbler one. If they could take out the Hagglund, it would demoralize the enemy. Perhaps enough to encourage them to give up the assault and turn back.

Either way, Monk and the others couldn’t let the assault force reach the seed vault. According to Painter, there were over forty people still alive in there.

As the Hagglund lumbered along the valley floor, Painter exchanged his rifle for the grenade launcher. They would have only one chance. Once they fired, they would draw the full wrath of the force toward them.

Monk slapped his palm twice on the roof of the Sno-Cat.

Obeying the signal, the driver slowed to a stop.

Painter swung the weapon up and aimed. Monk pulled his goggles off. The fiery flash of the launcher might blind him. Without the goggles, he could see nothing. The blizzard swirled and spun, erasing the world. It was like being trapped in a snow globe that someone had tossed into a paint shaker.

No wonder the enemy hadn’t spotted them.

“Fire in the hole,” Painter said and pulled the trigger.

The launcher belched out smoke and flames, and the grenade rocketed through the curtain of snow.

Monk shoved his goggles back in place. He got them seated in time to see the hot passage of the grenade slam into the treads of the Hagglund. A bloom of fiery orange marked the impact. Hit broadside, the troop carrier tipped up on one tread.

Monk willed it to topple over.

It didn’t. It crashed back down on its treads. The Hagglund tried to move, but with one set of tracks ruined, it foundered in the snow, turning in place. Doors popped open, and smaller heat signatures abandoned the vehicle, diving flat against the snow. The soldiers knew they were under attack, sitting ducks in the Hagglund.

“Firing!” Painter yelled.

Monk covered his eyes, heard the launcher roar, then looked up again. Painter’s aim was perfect. The rocket crashed through the front windshield of the vehicle and exploded inside. Windows blew out in a fiery ruin. Bodies tumbled through the air, blazing brightly through the goggles.

Painter dropped flat.

Bullets whined past overhead.

Firing the grenade launcher had given away their position.

With their cover blown, Monk slapped the roof, and the Sno-Cat kicked into gear. The driver quickly gained speed going downhill, then tore the vehicle to the right. The Sno-Cat lifted up off one tread.

Monk held tight. Painter knocked into him.

The Cat jumped the snowbank and went airborne for a stomach-rising moment, then slammed back down. Monk crashed to the roof and took a glancing blow to his ribs against a roof rail.

But he didn’t complain.

They had only a short window of time to take advantage of the confusion. During the short run down the slope, they had gotten below the Hagglund’s position. They had to attack before the assault force was entrenched.

Monk spotted heat signatures against the cold snow. He raised his rifle to his cheek and began firing. Painter did the same. They took out a few men, sending them sprawling. But aiming was a challenge as the Sno-Cat bounced and rattled over the ice and snow.

Some soldiers ran for cover. Others fled upslope.

A barrage of return fire blasted from behind the Hagglund. Pings rang out as rounds spattered against the metal grille of the Sno-Cat. Monk heard the telltale crunch of the windshield being struck.

The driver didn’t slow but turned, doing his best to keep the bulk of the Hagglund between them and the shooters. Other soldiers fired at them, hidden behind chunks of ice or boulders.

Still, the Cat was a difficult target in the snowstorm, and the Norwegian did his best to keep moving, to slalom one way then the other.

As they climbed the slope, a new noise intruded: the angry whine of snowmobiles. The advance team had swung back around and was headed to the aid of the others.

While the Sno-Cat might be a shark circling the Hagglund, the smaller snow machines were leaner, swifter predators.

Their position was about to be overrun.

1:41 P.M.

Through his goggles, Painter watched the swarm of ten snowmobiles dive toward the Hagglund. The small vehicles’ heat signatures were bright spots against the cold snow. He and his team had no choice but to take the fight to the others.

The Sno-Cat sped upslope to meet the charge head-on.

As they neared the blasted behemoth, the enemy began to fire more furiously at them. With the approach of the snowmobiles and the promise of additional firepower, the soldiers on the ground grew more confident and secured their positions.

A fiery trail burned across Painter’s shoulders.

He didn’t flinch, nor did he stop firing.

Neither did anyone else.

As the Cat climbed to face the challenge, rifles fired in a continual blaze from the trundling vehicle. They had to break the back of this assault. Painter had hoped taking out the Hagglund would send the others running, but these were seasoned fighters. They didn’t scare that easily.

It would have to become a fiery brawl, pitting speed, wit, and skill.

Or so he thought.

A strange new noise intruded.

A shrill whistling pierced the chatter of gunfire.

Monk slapped the roof of the Cat three times. The driver slammed to a stop. Unprepared, Painter went flying forward off the roof. His body slammed into the windshield, but the tether kept him from tumbling away.

Monk had kept his perch. He reached with a knife and cut Painter’s tether, then did the same to his own.

“Get inside!” Monk yelled and pointed below.

Painter trusted the firmness in Monk’s voice. As he hopped down, both doors popped open. Monk dove for the passenger side. The driver leaned out, grabbed Painter’s sleeve, and dragged him in. The small Cat was only a two-man vehicle, but there was a storage compartment in back. Still, it was a tight fit.

Gunfire continued, flaring brightly through the snow. A few stray shots clipped their vehicle. But with all return fire stopped and the engine throttled down, their exact position grew more obscured in the storm.

“What’s happening?” Painter asked.

Monk continued to stare intently forward. “I told you Creed went to fetch help. The Norwegian army isn’t the only force defending that vault.”

“What’re you—?”

Then Painter saw them. Massive heat signatures bloomed out of the snow. Easily a dozen. They bounded at incredible speeds, growing larger as Painter watched. Now he understood.

Polar bears.

The sharp whistling continued, echoing down from the higher valley. Bear whistles.

The piercing noise must be driving them on down.

“The driver’s buddy grew up here,” Monk said in a rush. “Knew the haunts of the bears. Over three thousand are on the island alone. He was confident he could flush out a pack, get them angry and get them moving. Sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. Thought he was insane.”

Painter agreed. It was insane—but it had also worked.

Polar bears hunted seals. They could sprint at thirty miles per hour, with bursts of speed even faster. And this angry pack was going downhill.

Through the goggles, Painter watched the bears overtake the snowmobiles. Massive shapes swamped the slower vehicles, unleashing their savage fury against any moving targets in their rampaging path. Painter watched one snow machine go down, then another, toppling and crashing to the side, buried under a mountain of angry muscle.

Screams broke through the slowing gunfire—accompanied by fierce roars that stood Painter’s hair on end.

The remaining snowmobiles reached the Hagglund, but they didn’t slow. They raced straight past, the riders hunched low. The bears followed, sweeping through the entrenched soldiers on the ground. Some fired at the beasts, but the bears were mere shadows in the snowstorm.

The shots only succeeded in drawing their fury.

Screams and roars rose in volume.

One soldier fled on foot toward the Cat, as if their vehicle might offer him some refuge. He never made it. Out of the storm, a thick paw snagged a leg. The bear continued to run. The limb was ripped from the soldier’s body. He flipped high in the air, spraying blood.

Another bear bowled past the Cat, knocking its shoulder into the side as if warning them, an act of intimidation.

It worked.

Painter didn’t breathe.

The pack stormed through the valley, scattering men, leaving bloody bodies behind. Then, as quickly as they came, the pack vanished back into the storm like ghosts.

Painter stared. Nothing moved out there now.

Anyone who could flee had done so, striking off in a hundred different directions. Painter had hoped to break the back of the assault force by taking out the Hagglund. It hadn’t worked. But even the most seasoned veteran had to be shaken to the core when faced by such a raw display of nature’s brutal force.

A new whining grew in volume, coming from upslope.

A pair of snowmobiles blipped into existence in his goggles.

Moments later, they appeared out of the storm. Creed lifted an arm in greeting. The Norwegian driver patted Painter on the shoulder, his gesture clear.

It was over.

2:12 P.M.

Krista climbed through the snow.

She clutched her hood closed against the freezing wind. One sleeve of her parka was burned to a crisp. From the excruciating tug on that side, she knew a few patches had seared down to her skin, fusing cloth and flesh.

She had barely escaped the Hagglund. She had been halfway out a window when the second grenade slammed through the windshield. The blast tossed her end over end and slammed her into a snowbank. Her flaming arm was immediately extinguished.

Knowing they were under attack by an unknown and unexpected force, Krista had crawled, half in shock, over to the Hagglund and hid under it. There she rode out the firefight and the slaughter that followed.

She still trembled at the memory.

She remained hidden when her attackers gathered nearby. She gasped when she spotted her nemesis again. The dark-haired Sigma operative, the one named Painter Crowe. With his face now windburned, she even recognized the hint of his Native American heritage.

How many damned lives does this Indian have?

Staying hidden, she waited for them to leave. One snowmobile headed down toward Longyearbyen, going for help. The others headed back up to the seed vault, to maintain a defensive perimeter against any stray soldiers who might attempt to complete the failed mission.

She had no intention of doing that.

She crossed through the storm to an abandoned snowmobile. The driver’s body covered several yards of bloody snow. In agony, she tromped through the carnage and searched the vehicle. The keys were still in place.

Swinging a leg over it, she settled heavily into the seat and twisted the key. The engine grumbled up to a whine as she engaged the throttle.

She leaned low and sped away, heading down the mountain. There was nothing she could do here now.

Except make a promise.

Before this was all over, she would put a bullet through that Indian’s skull.

25
October 13, 3:38 P.M.
Bardsey Island, Wales

Gray lounged in a steaming tub of hot water.

He kept his eyes closed, struggling to settle his mind. For the better part of an hour he had argued with Owen Bryce, explaining how Rachel had a medical condition that required immediate evacuation. That she needed medicines back at their hotel on the mainland. The only concession he got from the man was that he would reconsider the request in the morning.

It didn’t help matters that Rachel still looked okay.

So for now, they were trapped on the island.

At least for a few more hours.

They would wait for nightfall, which at least came early this time of year. Once the islanders were settled in for the night, the plan was to steal that boat. They dared not wait until morning. If Owen still refused, they would lose another day. That could not happen.

So they took the offered rooms. They could use a little downtime. They were all worn thin and needed a moment to rest.

Still, Gray had a hard time relaxing. His mind gnawed and worried on the mysteries and dangers they faced.

Thunder rumbled up into a resounding clap. It rattled the panes of glass in the window above the tub. Candlelight flickered beside the bar of soap. The electricity was still out. Before drawing his bath, he had started a small fire in the bedroom’s hearth. Through his closed eyelids, he noted the rosy dance of the flames.

As he sprawled in the tub, a shadow suddenly moved across the glow.

He stiffened, sitting up suddenly, sloshing water over the floor. A figure stood in the doorway, dressed in a robe. He had not heard Rachel enter the room. The thunder had masked her approach.

“Rachel …”

She trembled where she stood, her eyes haunted. She didn’t say a word. She shed her robe with no seduction. She simply let it drop and crossed in a rush of steps to the tub. Gray stood and caught her in his arms. She folded against him, needing him. She buried her head against his neck.

He bent at the knees, scooped an arm under her backside, and lifted her up. She was lighter than he remembered, as if hopelessness had hollowed her out. Turning, carrying her, he settled them both into the hot water.

He cradled her in the steaming bath. Her hand slid down his belly, desperate, hurting, her need raw and on the surface. He stopped her and drew her hand back to his chest. He simply held her, waiting for her to stop trembling. They had been running since the fire in the woods, since she had first learned of the betrayal. He should have known better than to leave her alone now as they waited for nightfall.

If his mind had been troubled and unsettled, what must she be going through? Especially alone. He wrapped his arms tightly and squeezed as if by sheer muscle he might keep her safe from harm.

Slowly her trembling wore itself out against his strength.

She sagged into him.

He held her for a long while more—then with a finger, he touched and drew her face up. He stared into her eyes. They shone with her desire to be touched, to feel alive, to know she wasn’t alone … and deeper down, almost buried, the embers of old love.

Only then did he bring his lips to hers.

4:02 P.M.

Seichan waited inside her room. She stood with her back against the door and an unlit cigarette in her hand. A few minutes ago she had heard Rachel’s door creak ajar, heard her footsteps pass down the hall, then Gray’s bedroom door open.

Seichan listened with her eyes closed.

The door never reopened.

As she maintained her vigil, she fought against the welling mix of anger and jealousy, along with an ache she could not dismiss. It clutched her lungs and made it hard to breathe. Leaning against the door, she slowly sank to the floor and hugged her knees.

Alone, with no one to see, she allowed herself this momentary weakness. The room was dark. She had not bothered with a fire, or even a candle. She preferred the darkness. She always had.

Rocking ever so gently, she let the ache pass through her.

She knew she was reverting to a time when pain came often, growing from slaps to violations more intimate. There had been a secret closet where she would hide or seek refuge afterward. It had no windows. No one knew about it but the rats and mice.

Only there, tucked away in the darkness, had she felt safe.

She hated herself now for needing that comfort. She knew she should just tell him and end this pain. But she swore not to. It was because of him she had made that promise.

And no matter what the agony, she would never break it.

6:55 P.M.

Under cover of night, Gray led the others down the jetty.

The ferryboat rocked in its berth and beat itself against the bumpers. Rain poured out of the dark sky. Ahead, Kowalski stood beside the weathered catamaran. He had gone ahead and made sure that the boat was empty, the keys had been left.

Who would steal the boat in this storm?

It was a question Gray was ready to answer.

They all hurried down the dock.

“Get aboard,” Kowalski said. “I’ll free the ropes.”

Gray helped the others clamber into the stern of the ferry. It took acrobatics and timing as the deck rose and fell.

He took Rachel’s hand.

She would not look at him, but she squeezed his fingers warmly, thanking him silently. He had woken, snarled in blankets, to find her gone. He could not say he was totally disappointed. He knew the score; so did she. What had happened was sincere, deeply felt, and needed—perhaps by both of them. The momentary flash of passion was born out of fear, out of loneliness, out of mortality. Gray loved her, and he knew she felt the same. But even as they lay tangled together before the fire, buried in each other, wracked by a passion that burned away all thought, a part of her remained untouchable.

Now was not the time for anything to be reborn between them. She was too wounded, too fragile. In that room, she had only needed his strength, his touch, his warmth. But not his heart.

That would have to wait.

Gray hopped over the rail to the deck and grabbed the tossed line as Kowalski leaped into the boat.

“It’s going to be a monster of a crossing,” Kowalski warned them all. He hurried to the covered pilothouse. He got the engines started with a burbling roar, then signaled for Gray to let go of the last line.

With the boat freed, Gray headed across the rocking deck. Kowalski idled them away from the jetty and out toward the open water. They would run dark with no lights until they cleared the harbor.

Gray glanced back toward shore. No one came running. In this storm, the boat might not be missed until morning.

He turned back to face the roiling black sea. The wind howled and rain pounded. “Are you sure you can handle the boat in this weather?” Gray asked.

Kowalski’s background was as a seaman with the U.S. Navy. He had the stub of a cigar clenched in his teeth. At least it was unlit.

“Don’t worry,” the man said around his cigar. “I only sank one boat … No, wait. Only two boats.”

That was reassuring.

Gray returned to the stern deck. Wallace was passing out neon-orange life jackets from a storage locker. They all quickly donned them, clicking on the safety lights at their collars.

“Keep hold of something at all times,” Gray warned.

As they passed the breakwater, lightning lit up the night. The seas looked even worse. Waves seemed to be traveling in all directions, crashing into one another and casting up geysers of seawater. The currents had turned as wild as the weather.

Kowalski began whistling.

Gray knew that was not a good sign.

Then they were into open water. It was as if they had been dumped into a washing machine. The boat rode high, then low, rocked left and right—and, Gray swore, sometimes all at the same time.

No matter where he looked, all he saw were white-capped waves.

Kowalski’s whistling grew louder.

The ferry hit a steep swell. The bow lifted straight for the sky. Gray clung hard to a rail as everything loose in the boat slid toward the stern. Then they were over it and headed down the far side.

An errant wave hit them broadside at the same time. It washed over the stern like a sweep of God’s hand. Gray took a mouthful and was blinded by the sting of cold salt water.

Then they were clear and rising again.

“Gray!” Rachel called out.

Coughing, he realized the problem at the same time.

Seichan was gone.

Seated on the far side, she had taken the brunt of the wave on her back. It had ripped her off the rail and flushed her overboard.

Gray stood.

He spotted her bobbing far to stern, illuminated by her lifejacket’s small light—then the waves tore her from view.

Fixing her last location, Gray ran and leaped over the end of the boat. They couldn’t lose her.

As he flew toward the sea, Rachel yelled to Kowalski, “Turn around!” Then Gray hit the water, and all went black.

7:07 P.M.

Seichan spun as waves tossed her about like a leaf in a flood. The cold cut to the bone and made it difficult to draw air, which was hard enough with walls of water continuing to sweep over her.

She couldn’t even see the boat’s lights, only mountains of water.

She clung to her life jacket with one hand and wiped salt water out of her eyes with the other. She had to make for the boat.

Another giant wave crested ahead of her, impossibly high, leaning over her, raging white along its lip.

Then it fell on top of her.

She was slammed deep. The current churned her and spun her. She could not say which way was up. Water surged into her nose. She gagged in reflex, swallowing more stinging water.

Then the buoyancy of her jacket dragged her back to the surface.

She tried for a gasp of air, but all she could do was choke. She blinked away the salt, struggling to see.

Another wave rose before her.

No …

Then something grabbed her from behind.

Terrified, she screamed. The wave crashed over her. But still those arms held her. Hard legs wrapped firmly around her hips. They rode out the tumult together. She had no air, but the raw panic bled away, leaving only a steady fear.

Though she couldn’t see him, she knew who had grabbed her.

They surfaced together, riding higher with two life jackets.

She twisted to find Gray clasped tightly to her, his eyes rock-hard and determined.

“Save me,” she whispered, putting all she could into those two words. Even her heart.

7:24 P.M.

The lights of the fishing village glowed through the storm. The beach lay directly ahead. Kowalski aimed toward it.

Gray kept to his side.

He had to admit the man did know how to pilot a boat.

While he and Seichan had been battered in the churning waves, Kowalski had found them and brought the boat around in the rough seas. A lifeline was tossed, and they were dragged to the boat and hauled back on board.

The rest of the crossing was brutal, but no one else got tossed overboard. Seichan coughed behind him, still struggling to clear the water out of her chest. She had never looked so pale.

But she would live.

Kowalski worked the wheel and drove the catamaran into the shallows. A final wave lifted the boat and shoved it onto the beach. The twin keels dragged through the sand with a violent shudder of its deck. Then at long last they stopped.

No one had to be told. They all abandoned ship, splashing into the ankle-deep water and fleeing from the last of the waves. Kowalski took an extra moment to pat the side of the catamaran.

“Nice boat.”

As a bedraggled and sodden group, they climbed from the shore up toward the fishing village of Aberdaron. Like Bardsey Island, the place was shuttered against the storm. No one was on the streets.

Gray wanted to be gone before anyone discovered the beached ferry. After the dangerous crossing, he didn’t want to end up locked in a local jail.

He rushed them through the dark town and up to the church of Saint Hywyn. Their stolen truck was where they’d left it, still parked near the church. Gray turned to Wallace as they headed through the churchyard.

“What about your dog?” he asked and pointed to the rectory.

Wallace shook his head, though it clearly pained him. “We’ll leave Rufus be. He’s better off sleeping next to a fire than traipsing about in this boggin’ weather. I’ll come back for him when this is all over.”

With the matter settled, they all piled into the Land Rover.

Gray got the engine started, quickly headed out of the lot, and spun them away from Aberdaron. He accelerated as he hit the main road out of town.

But they still needed a destination.

“Saint Malachy’s tomb,” Gray said and glanced in the rearview mirror toward Rachel. “What can you tell us about its history?”

They’d never had a chance to discuss the matter in more detail. All he knew from a cursory inquiry with Rachel was that Malachy was laid to rest in northeastern France. Rachel had tried to elaborate, but at the time it had been enough. Gray had needed to concentrate on getting them all off the island.

With a long ride ahead of them, it was time he learned more.

Rachel spoke while staring out into the storm. “Malachy died sometime in the middle of the twelfth century. He expired in the arms of his best friend, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.”

Kowalski twisted his head. “Saint Bernard? Didn’t he invent those slobbering mountain dogs?”

Rachel ignored him. “Malachy was buried in an abbey that Bernard founded, the Abbey of Clairvaux. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles outside of Paris. Most of the abbey was destroyed in the nineteenth century, but a few buildings and walls still exist, including its main cloister. But there’s a small problem.”

From the way she said it, Gray knew the problem was not small.

“What?”

“I tried to tell you before …” She went suddenly sheepish, as if she thought she should have pressed him harder earlier. But like Gray, she’d also had a lot on her mind.

“It’s all right,” he said. “What is it?”

“The ruins are protected. They may be the best-guarded buildings in all of France.”

“Why’s that?”

“The Abbey of Clairvaux … it lies at the heart of a maximum-security prison.”

Gray swung around in his seat to look her full in the face. She had to be joking. From the stern and worried look on her face, she wasn’t.

“Great. So now we’re breaking into a prison and a tomb.” Kowalski sank down and crossed his arms. “Nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan.”

26
October 13, 8:18 P.M.
Svalbard, Norway

Krista paced the length of the ice-cold warehouse on the outskirts of Longyearbyen. Crates were stacked to the rafters. The place smelled of oil and coal. She wore a thick sweater to cover the bandages on her arm. A morphine haze clouded the edges of her thoughts. Other men were in worse shape. Two bodies on the warehouse floor were covered over by tarps.

Only eight men left.

She held the phone to her ear, waiting for instructions. She had dialed the number he had left. It rang and rang. Finally, the line was picked up. “I’ve been briefed,” the man said.

“Yes, sir.” Krista struggled to hear any indication of the man’s mood, but his words were calm and precise, unhurried.

“With the turn of events, we’re radically altering our objectives for this mission. With Karlsen now in Sigma’s hands, the decision is to abort all operations in Norway.”

“And what about in the UK?”

“We took a chance on co-opting those outside resources to assist us in finding the key. After the current turn of events, we no longer have that luxury. We must gather our chips and leave the table for now.”

“Sir?”

“The article stolen by Father Giovanni. Secure it.” “And the others?”

“Kill them all.”

“But what about our—?”

“All have been deemed a liability, Ms. Magnussen. Make sure the same isn’t said about you.”

Krista’s throat tightened into a hard knot.

“You have your orders.”

FOURTH

THE DARK MADONNA

27
October 14, 5:18 A.M.
Airborne over the Norwegian Sea

Painter watched the Svalbard Archipelago vanish behind them as the private jet sailed south over the Arctic Sea. They’d lost half a day evacuating the group trapped in the seed vault. Afterward, it took some fancy footwork by Kat in Washington to get them off the island before the media storm struck.

The dramatic bombing had drawn the world’s eye. Already a flurry of international news crews and NATO investigators were converging on the tiny archipelago. The remoteness of the place and the fierce storm had allowed Painter just enough time to slip away.

But he didn’t come alone.

Monk and Creed were sprawled over the cabin’s couch. Senator Gorman sat dead-eyed in one of the chairs. Their final passenger sat across from Painter.

Ivar Karlsen accompanied them voluntarily. He could have made it difficult, if not impossible, to extract him from Norwegian territory. But the man had an odd sense of honor. Even now he sat straight in the chair, staring out the window as the islands disappeared. It was clear that he most likely had been the primary target of the bombing at Svalbard, that his former ally had turned into his enemy.

He also knew to whom he owed his life and respected that debt.

Painter meant to take full advantage of that cooperation.

The small jet lurched in the unstable air, thickening the tension in the cabin. They were headed to London. Neither Painter nor Kat had heard from Gray’s team. He wanted to be on the ground in England as the search continued in the Lake District. Depending on what was found, they would refuel and continue to Washington.

But during this five-hour flight, Painter needed to wring this man dry of all he knew. Kat was investigating the sites of the seed-production fields that had been harvested throughout the Midwest. The news was grim: she’d already found multiple cases of unexplained deaths near fifteen test farms. A postmortem on one body had revealed an unknown fungal agent. And there were sixty-three more test fields still to check.

Karlsen spoke, sensing Painter’s attention. “I only wanted to save the world.”

Senator Gorman stirred, his eyes sparking with anger, but Painter gave the senator a hard glance. This was his interview.

Staring out the window, Karlsen failed to note the silent communication. “People talk about the population bomb, but they won’t admit it’s already gone off. The world population is racing toward a critical mass, where population outstrips food supplies. We are only a heartbeat away from global famine, war, and chaos. The food riots in Haiti, Indonesia, Africa, they’re just the beginning.”

Karlsen turned from the window to face Painter. “But that doesn’t mean it’s too late. If enough like-minded and determined people coordinated their efforts, something could be done.”

“And you found those people in the Club of Rome,” Painter said.

Karlsen’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “That’s right. The club keeps raising the alarm, but it falls on deaf ears. More trendy crises consume media attention. Global warming, oil supplies, the rain forests. The list grows. But the root of all of the problems is the same: too many people packed into too little space. Yet no one addresses that problem directly. What do you Americans call it? Politically incorrect, yes? It’s untouchable, tangled in religion, politics, race, and economics. Be fruitful and multiply, says the Bible. No one dares speak otherwise. To address it is political suicide. Offer solutions and they accuse you of eugenics. Someone has to take a stand, to make the hard choices—and not just with words but with concrete actions.”

“And that would be you,” Painter said, to keep him talking.

“Don’t take that tone. I know where this all ended. But that’s not where it started. I only sought to put the brakes on population growth, to gradually decrease the human biomass on this planet, to make sure we didn’t hit that crisis point at full speed. In the Club of Rome, I found the global resources I needed. A vast reservoir of innovation, cutting-edge technologies, and political power. So I began steering certain projects toward my goals, gathering like-minded people.”

Karlsen looked at the senator, then away again.

Despite Painter’s warning, Gorman spoke up. “You used me to spread your diseased seed.”

Karlsen glanced down to his hands folded in his lap, but when he glanced up, he remained unabashed. “That came later. A mistake. I know that now. But I sought you out because of your advocacy for biofuels, for turning crops like corn and sugarcane into fuel. It was simple enough to support such a seemingly good cause, a renewable energy source that freed us from oil dependency. But it also served my goal.”

“Which was what?”

“To strangle the world’s food supply.” Karlsen stared at Painter with no apology. “Control food, you control people.”

Painter remembered overhearing Karlsen paraphrase a line from Henry Kissinger. Control oil and you control nations, but control food and you control all the people of the world.

So that was Karlsen’s goal. Strangle the food to strangle the growth of the human population. If done skillfully enough, it might even work.

“How did supporting biofuels help you control the world’s food supply?” Painter could guess the answer, but he wanted to hear it from this man.

“The world’s best croplands are overworked, forcing farmers to turn to marginal lands. They make more money growing crops for biofuels than for food. More and more good farmland is being diverted to grow fuel, not food. And it’s horribly inefficient. The amount of corn needed to produce enough ethanol to fill one SUV tank could feed a starving person for a year. So of course, I supported biofuels.”

“Not for energy independence …”

Karlsen nodded. “But as one means of strangling the food supply.”

Senator Gorman looked aghast, knowing the role he had played.

But Painter noted the odd bit of emphasis. “What do you mean by one means?”

“That was just one project. I had others.”

5:31 A.M.

Monk had been following the conversation with growing alarm.

“Let me guess,” he said. “Something to do with bees.”

He pictured the giant hives hidden under the research facility.

Karlsen glanced over at Monk. “Yes. Viatus researched Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s a global crisis that I’m sure you’re aware of. In Europe and the United States, over one-third of all honeybees have vanished, abandoning colonies and never returning. Some areas have lost over eighty percent of their bees.”

“And bees pollinate fruit trees,” Monk said, beginning to understand.

“Not just fruit trees,” Creed interjected, next to him on the sofa. “Nuts, avocados, cucumbers, soybeans, squash. In fact, one-third of all food grown in the United States requires pollination. Lose the bees, you lose much more than just fruit.”

Monk understood Karlsen’s interest in Colony Collapse Disorder. Control the bees, and you control another large segment of the food supply.

“Are you saying you caused the bees to die off?”

“No. But I know what did, and that’s what Viatus wanted to exploit.”

“Wait a second.” Monk scooted closer. “You say you know what killed the bees?”

“It’s no great mystery, Mr. Kokkalis. The media sensationalize the theories—mites, global warming, air pollution, even aliens. But it’s much simpler—and proved. Only the media chooses to ignore it in favor of sensation.”

“So what caused it?”

“An insecticide called imidacloprid, or IMD.”

Monk remembered the codes stamped on the giant hives. They’d all had those same three letters: IMD.

“Many studies have already incriminated the chemical as the cause, along with an analog called fipronil. In 2005 France banned both chemicals, and over the course of the next years, their bees returned while the rest of the world’s hives continued to collapse.” Karlsen glanced around the cabin. “But did any of you hear about that?”

No one had.

“It’s not newsworthy enough,” Karlsen explained. “Imidacloprid, fipronil. Not as colorful as aliens. The media still hasn’t reported on the success in France. Which is fine by me. IMD has its uses.”

Monk frowned. “Less bees, less food.”

“Eventually even the media will wise up, so Viatus continued its own research into the compounds—to incorporate IMD into our corn.”

“Just like Monsanto engineered its herbicide Roundup into its GM seeds,” Creed added.

“If IMD is ever banned,” Monk realized, “you’ll still be able to control the bee populations.”

Karlsen nodded. “And in turn, the food supply.”

Monk sat back. The man was a monster—but a brilliant one.

5:40 A.M.

Painter needed to fill in more blanks. He went at Karlsen from another direction. “But Viatus was doing more than just engineering insecticides into its crops.”

“Like I said, we had many projects.”

“Then tell me about the peat mummies—the fungus found in those bodies.”

Karlsen’s steady gaze grew less sure. “As a biotech company, we test thousands of new chemicals every year, drawn from the four corners of the world. But this ancient fungus …” His voice took on an edge of wonder. “It was amazing. Its chemical nature and genetic structure suited my goals perfectly.”

Painter let the man talk to see what he’d reveal on his own. “From the desiccated bodies, we harvested fungal spores that were still viable.”

“After so long?” Monk asked.

Karlsen shrugged. “The mummies were only a thousand years old. In Israel, botanists grew a date palm from a seed that was over two thousand years old. And peat was a perfect preservative. So yes, we were able to grow the spores, to learn more about the fungus. Examination of the remains also showed how the fungus got into the bodies to begin with.”

“How was that?”

“It was ingested. Our forensic pathologist determined that the mummified people had starved to death, yet their bellies were full of rye, barley, and wheat. The fungus was in all of it. It’s a very aggressive crop mold, like ergot in cereal crops. The fungus is capable of infecting any vegetation. All for one purpose.”

“What’s that?”

“To starve any animal that eats the infected plant.” Karlsen acknowledged the shocked looks on all their faces. “Crops infected by the fungus turn indigestible. Additionally, the fungus will invade the animal’s gut, further reducing food absorption. It’s the perfect killing machine. It starves the host to death with the very stuff that is meant to sustain it.”

“So you eat and eat, yet still starve to death.” Painter shook his head. “What advantage is that to the fungus?”

Monk answered. “Fungi are one of the main reasons dead things decompose. Dead trees, dead bodies. Doesn’t matter. By killing the host, the fungus was creating its own fertilizer, its own growth medium.”

Painter pictured the mushrooms growing in the bellies of the mummies. But he also remembered Monk’s description of the discovery in the lab, of the sporulating pods that matured out of those same mushrooms. That was how it spread, casting out airborne spores that would infect more fields and start the whole process over again.

Karlsen drew back his attention. “The goal of our research was only to extract the chemical that made those grains indigestible. If we could engineer it into the corn, we’d be able to decrease its digestibility. With less digestible corn, you’d have to eat more to have the same caloric benefit.”

“So once again,” Painter said, “you’d be restricting the food supply.”

“And in a way that gave us total control. By manipulating this gene, we could turn a grain’s digestibility up or down like twisting a dial. That’s all we intended. And it’s not as if we were the first to seek such genetic control.”

Painter focused on those last words. “What do you mean?”

“In 2001 a biotech company called Epicyte announced they’d developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. It was proposed as a solution to the overpopulation problem. All this blatant announcement got them was a huge amount of bad press, and the corn seed vanished. As I said, addressing this issue openly only welcomes retribution. It has to be kept underground, out of the public eye. That was the lesson. And I learned it.”

And that was the point where everything went wrong. Painter kept his voice neutral. “But your new GM corn wasn’t stable.”

Karlsen gave a slight shake of his head. “The fungus proved more adept than we imagined. This organism has evolved alongside its host plants over eons. We thought we were only engineering one aspect of the fungus—its effect on digestibility—but it mutated in successive generations and returned to full potency. It regained its ability to kill, to germinate again into its mushroom form. But worst of all, it regained its ability to spread.”

“And when did you learn about this?”

“During the project in Africa.”

“Yet you had already initiated seed production in the U.S. and abroad?”

Karlsen’s expression grew pained. “It was at the insistence and assurance of our project leader and chief geneticist. She said the results of preliminary safety tests were sufficient for us to move forward. I trusted her; I never checked the results myself.”

“Who was this woman?” Painter asked.

Senator Gorman guessed, his voice bitter and hard. “Krista Magnussen.”

5:52 A.M.

Ivar Karlsen knew he could no longer avoid the senator’s fury. But it took him a moment to meet the man’s eyes. Instead, he stared down. From a pocket, he had removed a coin and let it rest in his palm. It was the Frederick IV four-mark, minted in 1725 by the traitor Henrik Meyer. His reminder of the cost of betrayal.

Karlsen’s fingers clenched the coin, recognizing how far he had fallen, led astray by Krista Magnussen. He finally lifted his eyes and faced Senator Gorman. The man had paid a stiff price in blood. Ivar could not deny him the truth.

“The senator is right. I hired Ms. Magnussen when we started the Crop Biogenics division six years ago. She came with a slew of recommendations from Harvard and Oxford. She was young, brilliant, and motivated. She produced results year after year.”

“But she wasn’t who she claimed to be,” Painter said.

“No,” Ivar said. “About a year ago, we began having serious problems at our facilities. Arson in Romania. Embezzlement at another. A rash of thefts. Then Krista revealed that she had access to an organization that could shore up our global security, quietly and efficiently. She described it as a corporate version of a private military contractor.”

“Did this organization have a name?”

“She called it the Guild.”

Painter failed to react to the name. Not even a twitch. His total lack of response convinced Ivar that the man knew about the Guild, possibly more than even Ivar did.

“It was all staged,” Painter said. “The accidents, the arson, the theft … the Guild made those happen. They needed you. So they softened you up to earn your trust. They pulled your butt out of the fire enough times, and you began to relinquish control. You grew dependent on them.”

Surely that wasn’t possible. But the pattern Painter laid out … it was so clear, like a deadly hand of cards.

“Let me guess,” Painter continued, adding to the pattern. “When things really began to go wrong … at the test farm in Africa … who did you turn to?”

“Krista, of course,” Ivar admitted, his voice catching. “She reported the mutations, that some of the camp refugees were becoming sick after consuming the corn. Something had to be done. But we’d already planted production fields around the world. She said the situation could still be salvaged, but she and her organization would need a free hand. She warned I must harden my heart. To save the world, what were a few lives? Those were her words. And dear God, I was desperate enough to believe them.”

Ivar’s breathing grew harder. His heart pounded in his throat. He pictured Krista naked, kissing him, her eyes fierce and bright. He had thought he’d known the game being played.

What a fool I’ve been …

Painter continued the story, as if he’d been standing beside Ivar these past days. “The Guild razed the village and told you that was necessary to prevent the organism from spreading. They took the bodies of some of the afflicted villagers for study and justified what came next. Let their deaths not be in vain. If more could be learned, others could be saved. And with seed production already begun, time was essential.”

Senator Gorman sat with his eyes wide, his fists clenched on his knees. “What about my son?”

Ivar answered that agonized plea. “Krista told me she found Jason copying secure data. She said he planned to sell it to the highest bidder.”

Gorman pounded his fist into his thigh. “Jason would never—”

“She showed me his e-mail with the stolen files attached. I privately confirmed that the file was sent to a professor at Princeton.”

“Princeton wouldn’t engage in corporate espionage.”

It pained Ivar to tell the man about his son. “Her organization had proof that the money trail led to a terrorist cell operating out of Pakistan. To expose him would expose us. It would also destroy your career. Krista tried talking to him, to convince him to give up his contacts, to keep silent. She said he refused, tried to run. One of her men panicked and shot him.”

Gorman covered his face.

Ivar wanted to do the same, but he had no right. He knew that the boy’s blood lay on his hands. He had ordered Jason held and questioned by those brutal mercenaries.

Then Painter tore away the last of Ivar’s delusions. “Jason was innocent. It was all lies.”

Ivar stared across the table, dumbstruck. He wanted to dismiss what the man was saying.

“Jason was killed because he inadvertently sent the incriminating data to Professor Malloy. It was why they were both murdered. To cover up proof of the crop’s instability. The Guild didn’t want that exposed.”

Painter stared hard at Ivar. “Once the information was leaked, they needed a scapegoat. You were to be thrown to the wolves. After they killed you in Svalbard, the Guild could safely fade away and take all the prizes with them: both a new bioweapon and the means to control what had already been unleashed. The global contamination by your crop would be blamed on the reckless ambition of a dead CEO. And with you eliminated, no one would be the wiser. To the Guild, you were no more than a pawn to be sacrificed.”

As Ivar sat perfectly still, cold sweat trickled down his back. He could no longer deny it. Not any of it. And down deep, maybe he had known the truth all along but dared not face it.

“But I have one last question,” Painter continued. “One I can’t answer.”

He slid a sheet of paper across the table. Written on it was a familiar symbol.

A circle and a cross.

Painter tapped the sheet. “I understand why the Guild would kill Jason and Professor Malloy, but why murder the Vatican archaeologist? What does this have to do with the Guild’s plan?”

6:12 A.M.

Painter knew Karlsen was near the breaking point. The man’s eyes were glassy, his voice a hoarse whisper. He clearly struggled with the depth of betrayal perpetrated against him. But the Guild were masters of manipulation and coercion, of infiltration and deception, of brutality and violence.

Even Sigma had once fallen prey to them.

But Painter offered no solace to the man.

Karlsen slowly answered his question. “Father Giovanni approached our corporation two years ago to fund his research. He believed that the mummified bodies found in the peat bog were the victims of an old war between Christians and pagans. That the fungus was used as a weapon to corrupt crops and wipe out villages. And this secret war was buried in code in a medieval text called the Domesday Book. His supporting documents were impressive. He believed a counteragent existed to the spread of the fungus, a cure, a way of eradicating it from land and body.”

“And you financed the search for this counteragent?”

“We did. What could it harm? We thought he might turn up some new chemical that we could exploit. But about the time we began to suspect that our new crop was unstable, we heard that Father Giovanni had made a huge breakthrough. He had found an artifact that he was sure would lead to the location of this lost key.”

Painter understood. “Such a counteragent, if it existed, would solve all your problems.”

“I had Krista interview him to judge the validity of his claim and to secure the artifact.” Ivar closed his eyes. “God forgive me.” “But the priest ran.”

Karlsen nodded. “I don’t know what happened. Whatever he told her over the phone drew the full attention of her organization. And after the disaster in Africa, we had to secure that artifact. If there was even the remotest possibility of a counteragent …”

“But you lost it. Father Giovanni was killed.”

“I never learned the exact details. After the mess in Africa, I had more immediate fires to put out. I left the matter to the Guild to pursue, to see if there truly was any validity to Father Giovanni’s claim.”

“And how did that go?”

He shook his head. “The last I heard from Krista was that another team was still searching for the key.”

That had to be Gray, Painter thought.

“Krista assured me that the Guild had a mole on that team.”

Painter went cold at his words.

If the Guild had infiltrated Gray’s team—

He struggled for any way to help them, to get word to them. But he didn’t even know if they were dead or alive. Either way, there was nothing he could do for them.

They were on their own.

28
October 14, 12:18 P.M.
Troyes, France

A library was an unlikely spot to plan a prison break.

But they had to start somewhere.

Gray shared a desk with Rachel. Stacks of books were piled around them. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the modern library in the city of Troyes. Computer stations dotted rows of tables in the research room.

Despite its glass-and-steel architecture, the library was ancient. Founded in a convent in 1651, it remained one of the oldest libraries in all of France. Its main treasure was a collection of manuscripts from the original Abbey of Clairvaux. After the French Revolution, the entire abbey library had been moved to Troyes for safekeeping.

And for good reason.

“It was Napoleon who turned the abbey into a prison,” Gray said, pushing back a book and stretching a kink out of his neck.

Since driving from Paris, they had spent all morning in the library, researching the abbey and its saints. They’d had little sleep, only what they could manage in the airport or on the short plane hop from England.

With the clock ticking, Gray faced two challenges: how to reach the ruins that lay at the heart of Clairvaux Prison and what to look for once they got there. With much still to learn, he had no choice but to assign tasks and split everyone up.

Gray accompanied Rachel and Wallace to Troyes. The town lay only eleven miles from the prison. Its library contained the greatest collection of historical documents about the abbey. To expedite their research, Gray divided their tasks. Rachel concentrated on Saint Malachy’s life, death, and entombment at the old abbey. Wallace was off with a clerk to the restricted Grand Salon of the library to review original documents concerning Saint Bernard, the founder of the monastic order and a close friend of Malachy’s.

Gray concentrated on digging up every architectural detail he could find on the original abbey. He had a stack of books equal to Rachel’s. Open before him was a text that dated to 1856. It contained a map of the original abbey precinct.

A tall outer wall surrounded the property, interrupted by watchtowers. Inside, the grounds were divided into two areas. The eastern ward held gardens, orchards, even a few fishponds. To the west spread barns, stables, slaughterhouses, workshops, and guest lodgings. Between them, secured behind its own inner walls, stood the abbey itself, including the church, cloisters, lay buildings, and kitchens.

With the book open before him, Gray studied the nineteenth-century map.

Something kept drawing him back to this picture, but the more he concentrated, the less sure he became. For the past half hour, he had used the map to pinpoint the few surviving structures of the abbey. All that still stood were a couple of barns, a few sections of walls, a nicely preserved lay building, and the ruins of the original cloister.

It was the latter—le Grand Cloître—that most intrigued Gray.

The Grand Cloister lay immediately next to where the old abbey once stood. And it was beneath that church that Saint Malachy had been buried.

But was he still there?

That was another worry. According to Rachel, after the French Revolution, the tomb of Saint Malachy disappeared from the historical record.

Did that mean something?

Which brought Gray back around to a question that still nagged him.

“Why did Napoleon turn the abbey into a prison?”

Wallace had returned and overheard the question. “It’s not that unusual,” he explained as he sat down. “Many old abbeys from the Middle Ages were converted into penal facilities. With their thick walls, towers, and monastic buildings, they were an easy conversion.”

“But of all the abbeys in France, Napoleon picked this one for his prison. He picked no others. Could he have been protecting something?”

Wallace rubbed his lower lip in thought. “Napoleon was a key figure during the Age of Enlightenment. He was fixated on the new sciences but also fascinated by the old. When he led his disastrous campaign into Egypt, he brought a slew of scholars with him to scour the archaeological treasures there. If he had learned of some forbidden knowledge hidden at the abbey, he might well have guarded it. Especially if he thought it might threaten his empire.”

“Like the curse.” Gray remembered the word written in the Domesday Book.

“Wasted.”

Had something scared Napoleon enough to lock it up?

Gray hoped so. If the Doomsday key had been buried in Saint Malachy’s tomb, it might still be there.

Rachel didn’t have time for them to be wrong.

Over the course of the past hours, she had begun to run a fever. Her brow was hot, and she was prone to chills. Even now, she wore a sweater buttoned to her neck.

She didn’t have the luxury of mistakes.

Gray checked his watch. They were scheduled to meet Kowalski and Seichan in another hour. The pair had gone off to the prison, to scope it out and study it for weaknesses. It was up to Seichan to discern a way into the maximum-security facility. She had left with a doubtful expression fixed to her face.

Rachel stirred from her book, her complexion waxy and pale, her eyes red and puffy. “I can’t find anything more than I have,” she finally conceded in defeat. “I’ve read Malachy’s whole life story, from his birth to his death. I still could not discover a reason why Malachy, an Irish archbishop, was buried in France. Except that he and Bernard were the deepest of friends. In fact, it states here that Bernard was buried with Malachy at Clairvaux.”

“But are they still there?” Gray asked.

“From everything I’ve read, the bodies were never moved. But the historical record after the French Revolution goes blank.”

Gray turned to Wallace. “What about Saint Bernard? Were you able to find anything about the man or the founding of the abbey that might be useful?”

“A couple of items. Bernard was closely associated with the Knights Templar. He even authored the Templar rules and was instrumental in getting the Church to recognize their order. He also instigated the Second Crusade.”

Gray weighed that information. The Knights Templar were considered to be the keepers of many secrets. Could this be one of them?

Wallace continued, “But one item stood above all the others, the story of a miracle. One that happened here. It is said that Bernard became deathly ill from an infection, but as he prayed before a statue of the Virgin Mary, it bled milk that healed him. It became known as the Lactation Miracle.”

Rachel closed her book. “Another example of a miraculous healing.”

“Aye, but that’s not even the interesting part,” Wallace said with a sly cock of one brow. “According to the story, the statue that bled the milk … was a Black Madonna.”

Gray took a moment to absorb the shock of it. “A Black Madonna healed him …”

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Wallace said. “Maybe it was allegorical. I don’t know. But after Malachy’s death, Saint Bernard became a major advocate for the worship of the Black Madonna. He was instrumental in starting the cult.”

“And that miracle occurred right here.”

“Aye. Definitely suggests that the dark queen’s body might have been transported here to Clairvaux—along with the key.”

Gray hoped he was right, but there was only one way to know for sure. They had to get into that prison.

12:43 P.M.
Clairvaux, France

Seichan headed through the woods.

Her scouting expedition to Clairvaux had produced few results. Wearing cold-weather hiking gear, she had binoculars around her neck and a walking stick. Just a young woman out for a day’s hike. Only this traveler packed a Sig Sauer in a holster at the small of her back.

The prison and former monastery lay in a valley between two wooded ridges. According to Rachel, it was common for the Cistercian order to build their monasteries in such remote locations. Preferring an austere lifestyle, the monks withdrew to woodlands, mountaintops, even marshes.

Out of the way, it also served as a good prison site.

Seichan had hiked completely around the perimeter of Clairvaux, noting the position of all the guard towers, the rows of walls, the steel pickets, and the razor-sharp rolls of concertina wire.

It was a fortress.

But no castle was impenetrable.

A plan was already building in her head. They would need uniforms and passes and a French police truck. She had left Kowalski at an Internet café in the neighboring village of Bar-sur-Aube. Through a Guild source, he was gathering a list of the names of both prisoners and guards, including their photos. She believed she could have everything ready by tomorrow. Morning visiting hours would allow one or two of them to get inside. The rest would need to come in the marked truck with fake photo credentials.

Still, there remained many variables. How long would they need to be in there? How would they get out? What about weapons?

She knew they were moving too fast, too recklessly.

Seichan suddenly ducked behind the thick bole of a white oak. She couldn’t say why she felt the need to hide.

Just a prickling at the base of her neck.

She knew better than to ignore it. The human body was a big antenna, picking up signals the conscious mind often missed, but the deeper part of the brain, where instinct was rooted, continually processed them and often sounded the alarm.

Especially if trained from childhood, like Seichan, whose survival had depended on listening to those darker folds of awareness.

As she held her breath, she heard the crackle of dried leaves behind her. Ahead, a rustle of branches. She dropped into a crouch.

She was being hunted.

Seichan knew that spotters had followed them to France. Before leaving England, she had reported in with her contact. Magnussen knew their destination. The tail had picked them up again in Paris. It hadn’t taken Seichan long to spot them.

But she would have sworn no one had followed her from Bar-sur-Aube after she dropped off Kowalski. She had left her car parked at a roadside rest stop and headed into the woods alone.

Who was out there?

She waited. Heard the rustle behind her again. She fixed the location in her head. Pivoting out, she took in the view in one unblinking stare. A man with a rifle, camouflaged, crept through the woods, clearly military-trained. Even before she was done pivoting, she snapped out her arm. The steel dagger flew from her fingertips. It shredded through the leaves and impaled the hunter through the left eye.

He fell back with a cry.

She rushed forward and closed the distance in four steps. She slammed her palm into the hilt, driving it deep into his brain.

Without slowing, she snatched his rifle and continued upslope.

A boulder lay near the ridge. From her earlier survey, she had the entire terrain mapped in her head. Reaching the shelter, she slid and flipped over on her belly. She came to rest in a sniper’s crouch, her eye already at the scope.

A ping ricocheted off the boulder near her head.

She heard no gunshot, but the round’s passage had brushed through a pine branch. Needles puffed. She fixed the trajectory through the scope, spotted a solid shadow moving through a dappled one, and squeezed the trigger.

The rifle spat with no more noise than the snap of a finger.

A body crashed. No scream. A clean head shot.

Seichan moved again.

There would be a third.

She ran along the ridgeline, triangulating the most likely spot for a third assassin. She kept to the high ground. The map of the terrain overlay her vision, like the heads-up display inside a helmet.

If she had been setting up an ambush in this region of the woods, there was a tempting roost ahead. A lightning-struck dead oak with a hollowed-out trunk. If she had hiked another thirty yards, she would have moved into its field of fire. The other two assassins, sensing their prey about to stumble into the snare, must have let their guard down and closed in prematurely, foolishly exposing themselves in their haste.

Surely Magnussen would have warned them of their target’s lethality.

But these were men, mercenaries with egos to match.

She was only a woman.

She came at the tree from behind, from upslope. She slipped to it without disturbing leaf or twig.

Planting her rifle an inch from the back of the dead oak, she fired through it. A cry of surprise and pain erupted as a body fell out of the tree’s hollow on the far side. She came at him with her dagger.

He was burly, smelled of grease, his face stubbled with a black beard. He cursed at her in Arabic with a heavy Moroccan accent. She had the dagger at his neck, intending to interrogate him, to find out why she had been ambushed and who had sent them.

She could make him talk. She knew ways.

Instead, she dragged her knife across his throat, below the larynx, a silent kill, and kicked him in his face. There was no need to interrogate him, she realized. She already knew the answers to her questions.

Something had changed. A kill order had been sent by Magnussen. Catching her alone in the woods, they’d tried to take her out first.

She pictured Gray and the others. She ran headlong toward the parking lot. They had no idea.

She reached to a pocket and flipped open her phone. She jabbed in the number she had memorized.

As it was picked up, she let all her anger ring out. “Your operation! Just so you know, it failed!”

1:20 P.M.

Rachel stood with Wallace in a hotel garden at the heart of Bar-sur-Aube. She checked her watch. Kowalski and Seichan should have been here by now.

She stared out toward the street. The plan was to meet for lunch, to go over plans. They had rooms booked here. The hotel—le Moulin du Landion—had been stylishly converted out of a sixteenth-century water mill. The original canal still ran through the gardens, turning an old wooden waterwheel.

She should have been charmed by the place, but all she felt was ill. Her head pounded, her throat burned, and her fever was getting worse. She finally slumped and sat on one of the patio chairs.

Gray returned from the lobby. He shook his head as he approached. “No one picked up the keys.” He noted her sitting, and his face tightened with worry. “How are you feeling?”

She shook her head.

He kept staring at her. She knew what he was thinking. Seichan had sketched a general plan for entering the prison. They would attempt it tomorrow morning. Gray clearly wondered if she’d make it that long.

Suddenly Seichan appeared, passing from the street through the garden gate. She searched all around. The woman, always hyperalert, seemed especially edgy now. Her eyes were rounder, her gaze more flighty.

Gray must have noted the same. “What’s wrong?”

She frowned at him. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” But when she noted they were missing one person, she tensed again. “Where’s Kowalski?”

“I thought he was with you.”

“I left him in town to do some research while I scouted the woods.”

“You left Kowalski to do research?”

Seichan dismissed the skepticism. “It’s all grunt work. I left instructions a monkey could follow.”

“Yet we’re still talking about Kowalski.”

“We should go look for him,” Seichan said.

“He’s probably found a bar open for lunch. He’ll find his way back here eventually. Let’s talk about what we’ve all learned today.” Gray motioned to Rachel’s table.

Seichan didn’t seem happy with that decision. She remained standing, pacing, keeping a constant vigil. Rachel noticed a muscle in her face twitch when the waterwheel squeaked.

The woman was drawn tight, but eventually she took a seat.

Gray questioned her on the plans for tomorrow. They all kept their voices to a low murmur, heads bowed together. As Seichan listed everything they would need, Rachel grew more and more dismayed. A thousand things could go wrong.

Her headache grew to a stabbing agony behind her right eye, painful enough that she began to feel nauseated.

Without missing a beat of the conversation, Gray placed his hand on top of hers. He hadn’t even looked in her direction. It was an instinctual gesture of reassurance.

Seichan noted it, staring down at his hand—then she suddenly swung toward the street and tensed. She went dead still, like a cheetah before it charges.

But it was only Kowalski. He came sauntering into view. He lifted an arm in greeting, opened the garden gate, and crossed toward them. He was puffing on a cigar, carrying a pall of sweet-smelling smoke with him.

“You’re late,” Gray scolded.

He merely rolled his eyes.

Wallace used the interruption to voice his own concern about the plans for tomorrow. “This is a bloody long shot. It will take perfect timing and lots of boggin’ luck. And even then, I doubt we’ll make it to those abbey ruins.”

“Then why don’t we just take the tour?” Kowalski asked and slapped a brochure on the table.

They all stared down at a tourist pamphlet. It displayed a picture of an old arched colonnade with a fancy marquee above it.

Rachel translated the French. “The Renaissance Association of Clairvaux Abbey conducts tours of the prison.”

They all stared over at Kowalski.

He shrugged. “What? Got that thing shoved in my face. Sometimes it helps not to blend in.”

In Kowalski’s case, that was an understatement. No one could mistake him for a local.

Rachel skimmed the rest of the brochure. “They conduct tours twice daily. Costs two euros. The day’s second tour begins in an hour.”

Wallace took the brochure and flipped through it. “Such a short tour won’t allow us much time for a thorough search, but we could get a cursory sense of the place.”

Gray agreed. “It’ll also let us get a peek at the security from the inside.”

“But on this tour,” Seichan warned, “we’ll be searched. We won’t be able to bring any weapons inside.”

“No one will,” Gray said with an unconcerned shake of his head. “With all the armed guards surrounding us, we’ll be safer than we’ve ever been.”

Seichan looked far from convinced.

2:32 P.M.

So the bitch lived.

Four kilometers outside the town of Troyes, Krista crossed the grassy field toward the unmarked helicopters. The two stolen Eurocopter Super Pumas were already being loaded for the mission. Eighteen men in combat gear waited to load up. Technicians had finished equipping both birds with the necessary firepower.

A spotter on the ground reported that the targets were on the move. They had commissioned a tour of the abbey ruins and were headed to the prison. She had hoped to have dispatched Seichan before moving forward. The woman was too much of a wild card, but Krista had more than enough firepower and men to deal with her.

It just made it harder.

So be it.

Her orders were to acquire the artifact and eliminate the others. She intended to do that, but after the recent disasters, she also recognized how precarious her standing had become in the organization. She recalled the threat behind the cold words on the phone. Any failure from here would end in her termination. Yet she also knew that just meeting those expectations would not serve her.

After all that had gone wrong, she needed a win, a trophy to present to Echelon. And she intended to get it. If the Doomsday key was present among the ruins, she would force the others to find it for her, then eliminate them.

With the key in hand, her position in the Guild could be resecured.

Keeping that goal in mind, she left nothing to chance. Her targets had no weapons and no means of escape. Not while trapped in the heart of a maximum-security prison. Once her assault started, the prison would be locked down.

They would have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

She signaled her squad to board their aircraft.

It was time to crash this party.

29
October 14, 2:40 P.M.
Clairvaux, France

Gray knew they were in trouble.

Security at the prison proved to be iron-tight, even for the private tour group. Their passports were logged in, their packs hand searched, and they had to pass through two metal detectors, followed by a full-body wanding. Guards armed with rifles, batons, and holstered sidearms held positions throughout the main facility. More men patrolled the outer yard with massive guard dogs.

“At least they skipped the cavity search,” Kowalski groused as they cleared the last checkpoint.

“They’ll do that on the way out,” Gray warned him.

Kowalski glanced his way to make sure he was joking.

“This way, s’il vous plaît,” their tour guide said with a wave of her mauve umbrella. The representative from the Renaissance Association was a tall, no-nonsense woman in her midsixties. She was dressed casually in khaki pants, a light sweater, and a burgundy jacket. She made no effort to mask her age. She had a weathered look to her, her gray hair pinned back over her ears. Her expression seldom mellowed from stern.

Down a hall, they came to a set of double doors that led out to an inner courtyard. Sunlight splashed over the trimmed lawns, manicured bushes, and gravel paths. After the high security, it was as if they’d suddenly stepped into another world. Sections of crumbled stone walls, half-covered in ivy, crisscrossed the two-acre expanse, along with angular mounds that marked old foundations.

Their guide led them across the yard, trailed by an armed guard. She waved her umbrella toward the walls. “These are the last remnants of the original monasterium vetus. Its square chapel later became incorporated into the larger abbey church with its vast choir and radiating chapels.”

Gray took it all in.

On the tour bus ride there, the woman had given them a brief history of the monastery and its founder. They knew most of it already. Except for one telling detail. Saint Bernard had built the monastery on his own family’s land. Because of that detail, he would certainly have been well aware of the topography, of any hidden caves and grottoes.

Had he chosen this exact spot for a reason?

Gray noted Rachel staring down at the ground, too, surely wondering the same.

Off to the side, Seichan kept her gaze higher, toward the surrounding walls of the prison and its watchtowers. The ruins were completely enclosed on all four sides. Her expression remained grim.

Seichan caught him studying her. She held his gaze as if she were about to say something. Though outwardly stoic, the tinier muscles in her face, those beyond most people’s voluntary control, seemed to shift through an array of emotions, blurring into an unreadable confusion.

She finally turned away as the tour guide spoke. “Come, come. We’ll move next to the beautifully preserved lay building. It offers us a wonderful example of monastic life.”

She headed to the far side of the yard where a three-story stone building sheltered in the corner. It was fronted by archways and pierced by small doors and windows.

“The lower level housed the monastery’s calefactorium, or communal day room,” she explained. “Its design is ingenious, très brillant! Beneath the pavement ran a series of flues from hidden cellars. Fires below would warm the cold monks after prayers or night offices. Here they could also grease their sandals before they began their day.”

As she went on to explain more about daily monastic life during the Middle Ages, Gray studied the stones under his feet.

So the monks were proficient engineers and tunnel makers.

He also remembered Wallace’s assertion that such monasteries and abbeys were often riddled with secret passageways.

Did any of them survive?

The woman led them through more of the ruins, even out to the remains of a barn that served as an old currier’s shop, and lastly she rounded them back toward the ruined walls of the old church. She ended at the massive Grand Cloister, the crown jewel of the tour.

They crossed through a huge archway and entered the cloister grounds. The structure consisted of a square walkway, covered on top and lined with columns on the inside, facing a sunny inner garden. Gothic vaults held up the roof over the walkway.

Gray ran his fingers along the neighboring wall. To have lasted for a millennium, the whole structure stood as a testament against the ravages of time and weather.

What else might have survived?

Their guide brought them out into the central garden, with its narrow paths framed by low bushes and angular flower beds. “The cloisters were built to the south of the church to take full advantage of the best sun.”

She lifted her face to the sky to demonstrate.

Gray followed her out and stood beside an ornate compass that graced the center of the garden. He turned in a slow circle and studied the square of columns that surrounded him.

Of all the abbey grounds, why was the cloister so well preserved?

He sensed that if there was a way into Saint Malachy’s tomb, it had to be here. A few steps away, Rachel took photographs. They would study them back at the hotel, try to discern a solution.

Still, as Gray stood there, he knew photos could not capture the ancient feel of the place. He took a moment to absorb it all. Something about the structure nagged at him. He pushed away all distractions. He ignored the others wandering the ruins, turned a deaf ear to the guide’s continuing discourse.

Instead, he listened to this place.

He allowed himself to slip back in time, to hear the monks’ chanting, the ring of bells in a call to prayers, the silent prayers cast heavenward.

Here was a sacred place …

Surrounded by ancient stone columns …

Then he knew.

He turned full around once more, his eyes wide. “We’re in a sacred stone ring.”

A step away, Rachel lowered her camera. “What?”

He waved an arm around the cloister. “These columns are really no different than the standing stones back in the peat bog.” His excitement grew, his voice breathless. “We’re standing in the middle of a Christian version of a stone ring.”

Gray rushed to the towering columns and moved from one to the next. Carved out of massive blocks of yellow-gray limestone, each one had to weigh several tons, truly no different from the standing bluestones of England.

On his fourth column, he found it. It was faint, no more than a shadow worn into the surface of the limestone. He ran his fingers over the mark, tracing the circle and the cross.

“It’s the symbol,” he said.

The guide had noted his sudden attention. She joined him. “Magnifique. You’ve discovered one of the consecration crosses.”

He turned to her for elaboration.

“During the Middle Ages, it was traditional to sanctify a church or its property with such symbols. Unlike the crucifix that represents Christ’s suffering, these crossed circles represent the apostles. It was typical to adorn a sacred place with them. They always numbered—”

“Twelve,” Gray finished for her. He pictured the standing stones in the peat bog. There had been twelve crosses there, too.

“That’s correct. They mark the blessings of the twelve apostles.”

And maybe something much older, he added silently.

Gray moved through an archway into the covered walkway. He wanted to examine the far sides of the columns. The standing stones back in England had spirals on their reverse sides.

He searched quickly along the cloister. The others joined him. He found no markings on the inner surfaces of the columns. By the time he had circled all the way back to where he started, his excitement had waned. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was reading too much into the symbolism.

The woman noted his determined search. “So you’ve heard the local legend,” she said with a slight scoffing tone. “I think half the reason the cloister still stands is because of that mystery.”

Wallace wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “What mystery are you talking about, my dear lady?”

The woman smiled for the first time, slightly smitten by the older professor. Also, Wallace had been sticking close to her, asking lots of questions, which probably contributed to the attraction.

“It’s a legend only told locally. A story passed from one generation to the next. But I’ll admit, it is an oddity.”

Wallace returned her smile, encouraging her to continue.

She pointed to the courtyard. “As I said before, it’s typical to sanctify a church with twelve consecration crosses. But here there are only eleven.”

Surprised, Gray stepped back out into the garden. He mentally kicked himself for not being thorough enough. He had never thought to count the number of symbols. He had assumed there were twelve, like the standing stones.

“The story goes that the missing twelfth and final consecration cross of Clairvaux Abbey guards a great treasure. People have been looking for it for ages, scouring the grounds here, even searching the outlying barns. But it’s all just silly légendes. Absurdité. Most likely the twelfth cross had been carved inside the abbey itself, joining the blessing out here to the church.”

And maybe that link still existed, Gray thought.

The guide checked her watch. “I’m sorry, but we must end our tour here. Perhaps if you come tomorrow, I could show you more.”

This last offer was mostly directed at Wallace Boyle.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be back,” he promised her.

Gray glanced at Seichan to see if she thought that might still be possible. She had sidled next to him. With the tour ending, she had grown visibly tense.

Before he could question her, a loud siren blared, jarring and strident. They all searched around. What was going on?

The armed guard moved closer. Rachel turned to their guide, checking her face to see if this was a normal occurrence.

“We must find cover,” Seichan said at Gray’s ear. Her voice was urgent, but she looked almost relieved, as though she had been waiting for something to happen.

“What’s going on?”

Before she could answer, a new noise intruded. Past the siren, a heavy thud-thud reverberated, felt in the gut. He looked to the sky as two helicopters shot into view over the wooded ridgeline. The pair rose high, then tipped their noses and dove straight toward the prison.

From the sirens, Gray knew those two did not belong in this airspace.

The prison was under attack.

3:22 P.M.

Krista sat next to the pilot as he angled the helicopter toward the prison below. Even through the muffling headphones and the roar of the rotors, she made out the scream of the sirens below. The facility had picked up their approach, tried to hail them, but without proper call signs radioed back, the prison had sounded the alarm.

Ahead of her, the first Eurocopter swept over the prison grounds. From its belly, barrels dropped. They tumbled below and crashed with fiery explosions. The concussions cut through the chaos, booming like thunder.

Krista wanted as much mayhem as possible. She had been informed of the security protocol at Clairvaux Prison. In case of emergency, the facility would isolate the abbey ruins, both to protect a national treasure and to secure any tourists trapped there.

Like now.

The pilot from the lead helicopter radioed to her. “Targets have been spotted below. Sending coordinates.”

She glanced at her bird’s pilot. He nodded. He’d gotten the coordinates and banked the helicopter hard to the right. They were carrying ten men aboard their bird. Drop lines were being readied at both hatches. Once over the ruins, the men would bail out, slide down the lines, and secure the targets below.

Krista would accompany that first assault team.

She intended to handle this personally.

After the prison was bombed and burning, the other helicopter would unload its men in a second wave. The two birds would continue their patrol, ready and waiting to evacuate on her orders.

Leaning forward, Krista stared below. The coordinates marked a massive square of stone ruins around a large garden. The space was wide enough to land a helicopter inside if necessary.

The pilot came on the line. “Waiting your mark,” he said.

She lifted a fist and pointed her thumb down.

Time to end this.

3:24 P.M.

Gray sheltered with the others under the cloister’s covered walkway. His ears rang from the blaring sirens. His head pounded from the concussions. Fountains of fire and smoke erupted all around them.

Gray understood the tactic of firebombing the prison.

Someone wants us trapped.

And he could guess who.

Seichan’s bosses wanted them on a shorter leash. Had she informed them about how close Gray’s team was to finding the key? Was this how they wanted to play their endgame?

Still, Seichan looked just as angry. Apparently she hadn’t been informed of this change in plans.

“What are we going to do?” Rachel asked.

He couldn’t answer. He knew there were many questions buried in that one. How were they going to get out of here? What about the promised antidote to her poisoning? Without the Doomsday key in hand, they had no bargaining chip.

They needed that key.

Just before the assault, something had begun to gel in Gray’s mind. A vague idea, the whisper of a thought. But the sirens and bombs had blown it all away.

Something about the missing twelfth consecration cross.

Out of the smoke, a helicopter swooped into view. Its shadow fell over the yard as it skimmed to a hovering position. Rotorwash buffeted the enclosed space, flattening the flowers and shaking the bushes.

Gray and the others had nowhere to run.

As he faced the garden, he suddenly knew the answer. There was no calculation, no piecing it together. It formed fully in his head.

Time slowed to a crawl.

He remembered his fixation with the old abbey map at the Troyes library. He knew what had nagged at him. There had been a pagan cross inscribed on that very page. Back at the library, he had missed it, failed to recognize it in that context. In his mind’s eye, he saw it clearly now.

The pagan cross represented the earth quartered into its primary corners: east, west, north, south.

Just like the map’s compass.

Gray stared into the garden—at the decoration that graced the middle of the yard. The compass was an ornate brass construction that rested on a waist-high stone plinth. The compass was sculpted with elaborate frills, each of the four cardinal directions clearly marked, along with many gradations in between.

The twelfth consecration cross—though disguised in this new incarnation—had been in plain sight all along.

If Gray had any doubt, he reminded himself of one other thing. The compass stood in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by stones marked with sacred symbols. Such a spot was the most hallowed ground to the ancients who raised those old stones.

Gray knew what he had to do.

He swung to the guard and pointed to the hovering helicopter as its hatches were thrown open. “Fire!”

But the guard looked terrified. He was young, likely new, assigned to babysit the tour groups. He was out of his league.

“Well, if you’re not going to …” Kowalski grabbed the gun out of the guard’s stunned hands. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

He sprang up, aimed, and began shooting at the helicopter. Men dove away from the open hatch. One drop line tumbled loose and writhed as the helicopter yanked up and off to the side, caught by surprise at the gunfire.

Gray knew he had moments to confirm his theory.

“Kowalski, you hold off that bird! Everyone else, with me!”

Gray ran into the garden and headed toward the compass. “Get around it!” he ordered as he gripped the large brass N.

Wallace, Rachel, and Seichan manned the other cardinal directions.

“We have to turn it! Like at the tomb on the island. Make it twist like a spiral!”

Gray dug his toes into the lawn, planted his shoulder, and pushed. The others did the same. Nothing happened. It wouldn’t budge. Was he wrong? Were they turning it in the right direction?

Then suddenly it gave way. The entire compass lurched, rotating around its brass hub.

Rifle shots blasted from Kowalski’s position.

Return fire peppered down from above, concentrating on the shooter. Rounds chewed into the column where Kowalski had taken shelter. He was forced to duck away.

The helicopter swung back toward the yard. The beat of the rotors pounded, deafening them.

“Don’t stop!” Gray yelled to the others.

The mechanism was ancient. Turning the compass was like drilling into sand: grating, stubborn, and coarse.

The helicopter steadied into position above them.

Ropes dropped on all sides.

3:27 P.M.

“Don’t shoot!” Krista screamed as one of the men aimed at the four below. “I want that group alive.”

At least for now.

The soldiers’ bloodlust was up. One of them had taken a stray round to the face and lay dead on the cabin floor. Whoever was firing on them knew how to handle a rifle. She’d give him that much.

She pointed to the far side of the cloister, to where the sniper had taken roost. She clapped a gunman with a grenade launcher.

“Take him out.”

There was nowhere the bastard could hide.

Especially from a thermobaric grenade.

Kowalski sprinted.

He knew from the sudden cessation of gunfire that something much worse was about to drop on his head. At least the old lady and the guard had already fled the cloister when the firefight first started. They’d wanted no part of this fight.

Typical French …

The only warning Kowalski got was a sharp whistling that cut through everything else. He glanced back—so he didn’t see the hole.

One second he had stones under his feet, then nothing but open air.

He fell headlong down a narrow set of steps.

A fiery explosion ripped past his heels. A blast wave kicked him in the rear and catapulted him down the rest of the steps.

He landed in a crumpled, dazed pile at the mouth of a dark tunnel.

Deafened, with his nose bleeding and his backside smoking, Kowalski realized two things. The steps hadn’t been here a moment ago. And worse, he knew where he must be.

3:28 P.M.

Even with his ears ringing from the grenade blast, Gray heard his name bellowed, followed by a blistering string of curses.

“Run!” Gray yelled to the others.

He grabbed Rachel; Seichan snagged Wallace. They all fled from under the helicopter, dancing through the whipping ropes. The blast wave from the grenade had burst outward with a fiery slap. Even the helicopter had bobbled, which bought them just enough time to sprint for the walkway.

A large chunk of the cloister was now a blackened, smoky ruin.

Seconds before, Gray had watched Kowalski barreling away from the blast zone. Then the big man had suddenly fallen straight out of view, as if he’d tumbled down a well—no, not a well.

“Get your ass over here!”

Only one thing made Kowalski sound that scared.

The four of them ducked into the walkway. Gray spotted it immediately. A narrow staircase had opened in the floor. So he’d been right. Spinning the compass had unlocked the hidden passageway.

“Hurry,” he said.

Behind them, the helicopter had stabilized and men in combat gear zipped down the lines. He heard the boots hitting the ground as he reached the stairs.

“Down, down, down,” he urged.

The others piled through the opening. Gray went last. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a soldier leveling a rifle. He ducked. A spray of bullets passed over his head and rebounded off the wall. Ricochets pelted like bee stings. He took one to the skull that felt like it cracked bone.

It could have been worse.

Only rubber bullets, he realized as he hurried below. Nonlethal. Someone wanted them captured alive.

He tumbled into a lower passage.

Kowalski yelled back to him. “There’s a lever over here! Should I pull it?”

“Yes,” they all shouted in unison.

Gray heard a scrape of metal. The stairs began rising behind them. Each step was really a slab of rock, staggered to make a staircase. Each slab rose vertically to reseal the opening above.

Darkness fell over them completely.

A scratch of flint sounded, and a small flame flickered to life. It illuminated Seichan’s face as she held up her lighter.

“Now what?” she asked.

Gray knew they only had one chance. Rachel’s life—all their lives—hung on one hope. “We must find that key.”

30
October 14, 3:33 P.M.
Clairvaux, France

Krista stalked across the cloister’s garden. The day had turned to twilight as smoke choked the sky, occasionally stirred by a passing helicopter.

Throughout the prison grounds, hundreds of fires burned. Sirens continued to blare, punctuated by gunshots and men’s screams. The prison guards had enough to manage with loose prisoners, raging fires, and utter chaos. They wouldn’t bother with the ruins for the moment. But to ensure their continuing privacy, she had the second assault team set up a perimeter, guarding all access points to the area. Overhead, the helicopters with their gun mounts added air support.

An especially loud explosion drew Krista’s gaze to the west. A fresh curl of flame shot into the sky. An exploded fuel tank off by the small heliport, she guessed. The area had been one of their first targets.

Krista had wanted the prison as isolated as possible, for as long as possible. Before the strike, she had the major phone and communication trunks severed. She had the one road out to the prison planted with mines. Eventually a response would reach here, but she planned on being gone before that happened.

Or so she hoped.

Her second-in-command met her in the walkway. He was a hulking black Algerian named Khattab. He scowled and shook his head. “Still no contact with the targets.”

She had a team scouring beyond the ruins of the cloister. A soldier had shot at one from the group; from the description, it had been Grayson Pierce. But where did they all go? The shooter’s report made no sense. He had shown her where the others had vanished. But Krista found no window or door. The walls were solid. Had they slipped through the shadows and escaped?

So far they had not been spotted again.

All they’d found were a scared guard and an old woman out in the ruins. She had questioned them, but they didn’t know anything.

She stood in the walkway with Khattab and stared at the brass compass in the middle of the garden. They’d been doing something over there when her team flew in.

She pointed. “Get two men on that compass. See if there is anything unusual.”

“And what about the targets? Do our orders remain the same?”

“I have new orders.” She had hoped to secure the Doomsday key, but she recognized that was one brass ring beyond her reach. “Shoot to kill.”

As she stepped away, her boot heel skidded on some sand. It drew her eye to the stones underfoot. She knelt down. She had missed it before in the shadows, but a sandy line of grated limestone delineated a rectangle on the floor. Half-hidden behind a pillar, the location was where the shooter had seen their escaping targets vanish.

Krista pinched some of the crushed stone. She rubbed it between her fingers. Her eyes narrowed.

“Khattab, scrub those orders. I want men over here. Someone with demolition experience.”

Maybe that brass ring wasn’t quite so far out of reach.

3:34 P.M.

With his flashlight in hand, Gray led the others down a brick tunnel. It descended steeply in a straight course. As well as Gray could get his bearings down here, it seemed to be leading them beneath where the old abbey had once stood. By now, they had to be four stories underground.

No one spoke.

They all knew everything depended on finding that key.

Gray followed the beam of his flashlight. The sides of the tunnel vanished up ahead. Despite the urgency, he slowed everyone down. He remembered the booby trap he had inadvertently activated. Now was not the time for a careless mistake.

Holding his breath, he edged down the last of the tunnel. His flashlight’s beam diffused into a much wider space. He stepped to the opening and gazed out at the chamber beyond.

His first impression was of a subterranean cathedral. Brick walls lined by four giant pillars supported a massive circular dome. The structure was similar to the vaults along the edges of the cloister. But here the dome was really one massive vault. Arched ribs rose from each of the four pillars and crossed at the top. Viewed from below, Gray knew what the pattern must look like: a circular dome quartered by crossed ribs.

It formed the pagan cross.

The quartered circle.

If there had been any doubt about the symbolic representation, he had only to look below for confirmation. Sculpted in bronze and embedded in the limestone floor lay a massive design. It stretched thirty yards across. It curled in one continuous pattern, sweeping out, then back in again, forming three perfect spirals, all entwined together.

It was the ancient tri-spiral, the ubiquitous symbol found carved across the standing stones in England, illuminated in old Irish Celtic texts, and absorbed by the Catholic Church to represent the Holy Trinity.

The circle above, the spiral below.

And between them stood one object. It was the chamber’s only feature.

“A Celtic Cross,” Rachel said, her voice awed.

The others joined Gray as he entered the domed chamber.

The cross rose from the center of the tri-spiral. Sculpted also of bronze, it was plain, unadorned, only seven feet tall. It was constructed of two bronze poles crossed up high with a circular crosspiece.

Gray led the way.

Only Kowalski hung back by the tunnel. “I’ll stay here,” he said. “I remember what happened the last time you messed with a cross.”

The four of them continued into the chamber.

Wallace commented on the simplicity of the religious sculpture. “Cistercian monks always preached against excessive adornment. They believed in austerity and minimalism. Everything in its place and serving its function.”

Gray carefully crossed to the bronze spiral. He wasn’t sure such a massive floor design could be classified as austere. But the professor was correct about the cross. In form and size, it seemed insignificant. In fact, it looked more like an industrial tool than a religious symbol.

Still, no one could deny its importance.

Rachel commented on it, looking up. “It stands between the spiral and the quartered cross.”

Gray took a moment to shine his light across the dome. As his beam washed over the roof, he recognized something he’d missed. The dome, divided into four quarters, was not unadorned. His light reflected off raw chunks of quartz crystal imbedded in the ceiling.

As he cast his light around the dome, he knew what he was looking at.

“It’s a starscape,” Rachel said.

Gray agreed. He recognized constellations formed out of bits of quartz. The crystals varied in size, creating the illusion of three-dimensionality.

But they didn’t have time to appreciate the artistry.

Seichan reminded them. “What about the key? Back at Bardsey Island, you thought the cross held the combination to unlock its vault. Could it be the same here? Look.”

She pointed to the circular element hanging on the cross. The bronze wheel was scored with deep lines, similar to those on the stone cross on Bardsey.

Like the marks on a combination lock.

Gray suspected she was right, but there was a problem.

He didn’t know the combination.

And the last time he’d tried, he’d almost gotten them all killed.

From everyone’s worried expressions, they hadn’t forgotten either.

“We have to attempt it,” Wallace said.

“And if you trigger the booby trap,” Seichan said, “we can have Kowalski yank that lever like last time.”

He shook his head. “Even if it worked, we would still be screwed. Pulling the lever might haul our butts out of the fire here, but it could also reopen the stairs.”

He eyed the others, letting the significance sink in. Commandos would flood down here.

“Out of the fire and into the bloody frying pan,” Wallace concluded sourly.

Gray turned back to the cross. “We get one try. One mistake, and we’re doomed.”

Rachel offered the only solid reason for attempting it. “But we’re just as doomed if we do nothing.”

Kowalski added his own opinion. He grumbled it under his breath, but the acoustics carried it across the chamber.

“One more person says doomed and I’m out of here.”

3:48 P.M.

Krista stood next to Khattab as the team’s demolition expert finished packing the last hole with C-4 plastic explosive. He worked it with his fingers and shaped the charge with the deft skill of a sculptor. Once satisfied, he inserted a spark detonator tied to a wireless transmitter.

He waved everyone back.

They retreated out into the garden.

No one wanted to be under the walkway when it blew. The expert had warned that there was a chance the blast could collapse the walkway and bury the secret entrance.

“Ready?” Khattab asked.

She waved impatiently.

With a nod from Khattab, the demolitions expert lifted his transmitter and pushed the button.

3:49 P.M.

The blast dropped Rachel to one knee—not from any concussion, but from sheer fright. Already tense, she was caught off guard by the explosion. The meters of rock muffled the blast, but it still sounded like a gunshot.

“They’re trying to blow their way inside,” Seichan said, staring back at the tunnel.

“On it!” Kowalski called and ran with his rifle up the tunnel. But he was only one man against an army.

Already on one knee, Rachel slumped and sat on the floor. Her fever had grown worse. Chills shook through her. Her head pounded, as if her brain were expanding and contracting with each beat of her heart. She also could no longer ignore the nausea.

Gray stared over at her. She waved for him to continue his study of the cross. He had spent the past ten minutes examining the cross without touching it. He circled around and around. Sometimes he leaned close; other times he pulled back and stared off into space.

They had noted a few oddities about the cross. The horizontal crosspiece was hollow. And behind the cross, Wallace had discovered a long string pinned to the middle of the cross. It was dried sinew braided into a thick cord and weighted down at the end by a triangular chunk of bronze.

No one knew what to make of it—and no one dared touch it.

A pounding of boots announced Kowalski’s return. “They didn’t make it through,” he shouted with relief. “We’re still locked up tight.”

“They’ll keep trying,” Seichan warned.

Rachel stared over at Gray. They were running out of time.

For the moment, Gray had stopped. He slowly sank to the floor, as if giving up.

But she knew him better than that.

At least she hoped she did.

3:59 P.M.

Krista held the phone to her ear. She hadn’t wanted to take the call, but she had no choice. A palm was clamped hard over her other ear. The sirens still blared. And the firefight had grown louder from the prison yards. It sounded like an all-out war. She knew the fighting threatened to spill at any time into their isolated oasis.

“We know where they are!” she yelled into the phone, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. “We’ll have the passage blown open in the next ten minutes.”

She glanced over at the walkway. Khattab monitored the demolition expert’s handiwork. The Algerian noted her attention. He held up ten fingers, confirming her guess.

It was their second attempt. They had blasted a crater into the walkway and exposed a buried set of limestone slabs. She knew they were close and cursed the caution of their explosives expert.

Still, from the blackened wall and columns, she recognized the need. If they accidentally collapsed the walkway over the hidden entrance, they would never get down there.

The man on the line finally spoke. His voice was gratingly calm, unhurried. “And you believe they’ve accessed some vault that might hold the Doomsday key?”

“I do!”

At least she hoped like hell they had.

There was a long pause on the phone, as if she had all the time in the world. Off to the side, sharper rifle blasts erupted. They came from her own team. That could only mean one thing—the war was beginning to break through to them.

“Fair enough,” the man finally said. “Secure the key.”

There was no need to threaten.

The line clicked dead.

She stared over at Khattab.

He held up nine fingers.

4:00 P.M.

Father Giovanni must have known something. That was all Gray had to go on.

He sat with his eyes open, but he was blind to everything around him.

He placed himself back in the crypt beneath Saint Mary’s Abbey on Bardsey Island. He pictured the charcoal markings on the wall. In his mind, he again read the notations scribbled by the priest and studied the large circle drawn around the cross. Other lines bisected and sectioned the circle.

At the same time, he pictured the cross here. He remembered his first impression, trusting it. He had thought it looked more like an industrial tool than a religious symbol. Like a bronze timepiece, a device crafted for purpose, not decoration.

Wallace’s description of the Cistercian order echoed in his ears.

Everything in its place and serving its function.

He craned his neck and stared up at the quartz starscape. Breathing through his nose, he felt something rising up inside, some understanding that he couldn’t quite put into words.

Then he was on his feet. He never remembered rising. He stepped back over to the cross. He stared at it from the side. The bronze sculpture was only a bit taller than Gray. It required him to crouch to peer through the hollow crosspiece.

“It’s not a cross,” he mumbled.

“What do you mean?” Wallace asked from the other side.

Gray shook away any response. He didn’t understand, not completely yet. He bent down and stared through the hollow arm.

Seichan stood at his shoulder. “It’s almost like a telescope.”

Gray straightened, stunned.

That was it.

That was the one piece he needed.

Inside, a dam suddenly released, understanding flowed through Gray’s head. Images flashed across his mind’s eye faster than he could follow, but still, somewhere beyond reason, they came together.

He stared up at the roof.

Like a telescope.

He turned and grasped his enemy in a hug. Seichan stiffened, unsure what to do with her arms.

“I know,” he whispered in her ear.

She jolted at his words, perhaps misinterpreting them.

He let her go. He dropped to the floor and checked the base of the cross. It sat on a half sphere of bronze. He felt around the edges. It wasn’t flush. There was a wafer-thin gap between the stone and the bronze.

He sprang back to his feet and ran for the pack he’d abandoned on the floor. He dumped it out and found a black marker. He knelt down, needing to see it for himself. He worked quickly, his marker flying across the stone.

As he worked, a part of his mind traveled back to Bardsey. He recognized the partial calculations on the wall now. The circle with the lines. Father Giovanni was smarter than all of them. He had figured it out. The circle was a representation of the earth. His notations—

“They were calculations of longitude and latitude.”

The others gathered around him.

“What are you talking about?” Wallace asked.

Gray pointed to the bronze sculpture in the center of the room. “It’s not a cross,” he repeated. “It’s a navigational tool. One tied to the stars!”

He finished his drawing.

His sketch showed how the cross could be tilted, how its arm could be pointed at a star, how the weighted sinew could act like a plumb line, and the turning wheel of the device could measure degrees.

“It’s an early sextant,” he explained.

“Oh my God.” Wallace fell back in shock. A palm rose to his forehead. “For the longest time, archaeologists have debated how the ancients were so accurate in positioning their stones. How precisely they were able to align them!” He stabbed a finger at the drawing. “Bloody hell! That device could even be a theodolite!”

“A what?” Rachel asked.

Gray answered, recognizing it now, too. “A surveying tool, used to measure horizontal and vertical angles. Used in engineering.”

“The worship of the spiral and the cross,” Wallace said. “The symbols truly do represent the heavens and the earth.”

Gray stared down at his sketch of the earthbound cross pointed at the stars. “It’s more than that. The symbols also represent the worship of secret knowledge, the secrets of navigation and engineering.”

Seichan brought them back down out of the stars with a sobering question. “But what does all this have to do with the Doomsday key?”

They all stared toward the bronze cross.

Gray knew the answer. “In ancient times, only the priest classes had access to such powerful knowledge.” He glanced at Wallace for confirmation.

The professor nodded.

“To unlock the Doomsday key, we have to demonstrate that same knowledge.”

“How?” Rachel asked.

He remembered what Father Giovanni had been calculating at Bardsey. “We have to use the stars above and calculate a navigational coordinate. I’m guessing we have to dial in our location here. An approximate longitude and latitude.” He faced the others. “That’s the combination.”

“Can you calculate it?” Wallace asked.

“I can try.”

Gray returned to the floor. The Celtic cross functioned differently from a sextant, which used mirrors and reflections to discern latitude and longitude. But it wasn’t that dissimilar.

“I need a fixed constant,” he mumbled and stared up at the quartz starscape. It had been put there for a reason.

“The north star,” Seichan said. She crouched and pointed to the chunk of quartz that represented the pole star, used over countless ages for navigation.

That would do.

He worked quickly. He knew the approximate coordinates for Clairvaux from using his GPS during the drive here. He pictured the reading from the unit:

LAT 48°09’00"N
LONG 04°’00"E

Longitude and latitude measurements were broken down to hours, minutes, and seconds. Just sweeps around a clock. Like the lines scored into the spinning wheel of bronze on the cross. It was all proportional.

In under a minute, he had what he believed were the correct assignments using the ancient tool and their current location.

He memorized them and stood up.

Rachel stared at him, her eyes hopeful.

Gray prayed he was equal to that hope. “In case I’m wrong, you all might want to retreat back to the tunnel.”

He hurried over to the cross. As he reached it, he suddenly grew less sure. He would have only one chance. If he was wrong, if he miscalculated, if he failed to manipulate the ancient sextant correctly, the others were all dead.

He stopped and stared at the device.

“You can do it,” a voice said behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder. Seichan stood there. The others had joined Kowalski in the tunnel. “Get back,” he said harshly.

She ignored him, not even reacting. “It may take two people. One to hold the cross steady at the proper angle, the other to dial the combination with the wheel.”

He wanted to argue, but he recognized she was right. A part of him also had to admit that he didn’t want to be alone.

“Let’s do it then,” he said.

Gray again crouched to peer through the hollow arm of the cross. Like a telescope, he thought, remembering how the words had unlocked the knowledge inside him. They had come from Seichan.

He knew what had to be done. He reached to the cross and pulled the arm down. The entire sculpture tilted, pivoting on the spherical base. As soon as he moved it, a massive clank echoed up from under the floor.

There was no turning back.

Gray swung the arm so it pointed north. Staring through the barrel of the armpiece, he searched the starry dome. Seichan helped by keeping her flashlight pointed at the chunk of quartz that marked the north star.

After a moment of searching, he spotted the star and centered the scope on it. As he did so, a loud gong sounded. It came from overhead and reverberated through the space.

What did that mean?

From the roof, hundreds of stone plugs popped free and rained down. One struck Gray on the shoulder. Startled, he almost dropped the cross. Seichan swore and pressed a hand to her forehead. Blood seeped between her fingers.

She continued to stare up.

Gray followed her line of sight. From the roof, bronze spikes pushed out of a hundred holes. They lowered swiftly on long poles toward the floor. Behind them, a slab of stone dropped over the tunnel exit.

Gray and Seichan would never make it to the door in time.

It was a reverse of the trap at Bardsey. Instead of being dumped atop a sea of spikes, they were to be impaled from above.

Either way, the meaning was the same.

Gray had failed.

31
October 14, 4:04 P.M.
Clairvaux, France

“Are you sure this will blow that secret passage open?” Krista asked.

The demolition was taking longer than expected. After further calculations, the munitions expert had wanted to drill more holes into the crater, to spread the charges out for a more controlled blast.

The man shrugged as he worked. He was using an awl to hand drill the last of his mouse holes. The cubes of C-4 still waited to be molded and packed. He answered in Arabic. Her second-in-command translated.

“He says that it will blow open only if Allah wishes it.”

Krista had her hand clutched on her holstered pistol. Allah had better wish it, or that bastard was going to get a bullet through his skull.

“How much longer?” she asked instead.

“Still another ten minutes.”

Krista wanted to scream, but she simply turned and strode away.

Overhead, one of the helicopters swept past. Its rotors stirred the thick pall of smoke. Sunlight dappled brighter, then sank back to a murky twilight. The air reeked of oil fires and cordite.

She heard the helicopter’s guns chatter as it sped toward the skirmish line. Her forces fought to keep the prison war from spilling over them. Orders were bellowed. Men cried and screamed. The fighting was unusually brutal. She watched one of her commandos drag a fellow soldier into the cloister. The man on the ground writhed, pressing his guts into his belly with a fist.

Like the fallen soldier, they couldn’t hold out forever.

She turned to Khattab.

He raised nine fingers.

She took a deep breath to calm herself. They could last that long. Once the tunnel was opened, she was going down that hole and laying waste to all that stood between her and the key.

She glanced down to the suitcase at her feet.

Nothing would stop her.

4:05 P.M.

Seichan steadied Gray with a hand on his shoulder. He had stepped away from the cross, but he continued to hold it with one arm. She knew what he was thinking as he stared up at the spears sweeping down from above. Lines of agony etched his face.

“Should I yank the lever?” Kowalski hollered. He was on his knees, yelling under the closing slab of rock as it sealed the only exit.

“No!” Gray called back.

The others were safely in the tunnel, out of immediate danger from the impaling spikes. Only she and Gray were at risk. She knew the choice Gray had to make. If the lever was yanked, the trap would reset, but it might also open the secret door, allowing the soldiers to flood inside. If they saved themselves, the others would die.

There was no winning here.

All Gray’s decision did was buy the others a slim chance. If Krista’s forces were chased off before the door was blown open, the others might still live.

It was long odds, but it was a chance.

She stared upward.

She would take those odds right now.

Seichan stopped and faced Gray. She drew his eyes from the death descending on them. He had to know the truth.

What did secrets matter now?

But Gray suddenly twisted away. “What if I wasn’t wrong?”

“What?”

“Hold the cross steady while I turn the wheel,” he ordered.

She obeyed, baffled.

“Maybe it’s not a booby trap. Maybe it’s a timer. Once you attempt to solve the combination, you’re allowed only a certain length of time to complete it.” He motioned to the roof of spikes.

“So we’re not allowed to guess. No trial and error.”

“Exactly.”

Gray reached to the weighted string of sinew and made sure it draped smoothly. He ran his fingers along the wheel of the cross. His lips moved as he counted the marks. He reached a spot that must have corresponded to his calculation.

“Here goes,” he whispered.

He gripped the wheel and turned it until the spot he marked drew even with the weighted plumb line. He stopped and held his breath, his lips stretched thin with tension.

A gong sounded like before.

“That’s got to be it!” he said.

Unfortunately, the spikes dropped even faster now. They plummeted toward the floor.

“Gray!”

He saw and counted quickly. Out loud this time. “Eight, seven, six, five, four.”

Reaching the proper mark, he held his finger there and spun the wheel the other way. It required turning it almost a full circle.

Seichan ducked as a spike headed for her face. They were both driven to their knees. Seichan held one arm high, supporting the cross. Gray had both limbs up: one to hold the marked position, the other to spin the wheel.

As she watched, a spear point sliced along her arm.

Gray cried out as a spike stabbed into the back of his hand and pushed his arm off the wheel.

Kneeling in a slightly different position, Seichan snaked her arm between two spikes and got her hand on another section of the wheel.

“Tell me when to stop turning!” she gasped out.

It required shifting up to gain leverage. The wheel was hard to spin. She pressed her cheek into a spike. It pierced all the way through. Blood filled her mouth, flowed down her neck.

She struggled to turn the wheel, but it was too tight.

Panicked, her eyes caught Gray’s. She couldn’t talk with her cheek impaled. Agony wracked her. She willed all her grief and agony into that one glance, bared herself to the man, hiding nothing for once.

Not even her heart.

His eyes widened, perhaps truly seeing her for the first time, recognizing what lay hidden between them. A hand crossed that gulf and found her leg. He squeezed her knee and whispered three words that no one had ever uttered to her and meant.

“I trust you.”

What pain failed to do, his words accomplished. Tears welled and flowed down her cheeks. She pushed into the spear, driving it deeper. Her fingers gripped harder. She tugged on the wheel. It slowly turned.

Time stretched to a razor’s edge.

Pain tore through her.

She felt the spear tip on her tongue.

Still, she turned.

“Stop!” Gray finally called out.

She let go. She slumped, sliding off the impaling spear and onto the floor. Distantly, a third gong sounded.

Three spirals, three gongs.

Her vision darkened at the edges, but she saw the spikes pull back, retracting slowly toward the roof. With her skull on the floor, she heard huge gears turning below, like listening to God’s pocket watch.

Closer at hand, the cross straightened and righted itself.

Gray was suddenly at her side. He scooped her up and dragged her onto his lap. She curled around him, hugging him. He held her tight.

“You did it. Look.”

He lifted her higher in his arms. She stared out across the room.

As the gears wound below, each of the three spirals began to flip, revealing false floors. The sections rotated full around. The spiral sides vanished, turning upside down to reveal what had been hidden for all these centuries.

Bolted to the underside of each floor was a glass cradle.

As the three floors settled to a stop, the three cradles swung in their stanchions.

Even from here, Seichan knew they weren’t babies in those oversized cradles, but bodies.

The cradles were actually caskets.

“It’s the tombs,” Gray said.

Across the chamber, the door unsealed, and the slab pulled back up. The others rushed into the chamber.

Wallace’s eyes were huge. “You did it!”

“Gray …?” Rachel called out.

Tears streamed down her face. She must have thought he was dead. Relief and horror mixed in her expression at finding him alive but covered in blood.

Seichan tried to stand but was too weak.

Gray lifted her to her feet. He supported her with one arm. Blood still flowed from her stabbed cheek, but not as heavily. Wallace offered his handkerchief. She balled it up and pressed it to her face.

Gray stared at her, his eyes questioning. She nodded and took a stumbling step out of his arms. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But she didn’t belong there.

Rachel rushed to him and helped bind Gray’s hand.

Wallace came with Kowalski. “They’re glass coffins …”

“Of course they are,” Kowalski said.

Gray gave his bandage a final cinch. Blood still dripped from his fingertips as he pointed toward the tombs. “We need to find that key.”

4:08 P.M.

Gray knew where to look first.

He led the others to the one casket that was unlike the other two. Fine dust covered the glass, but the motif was clear. Flashlights focused on it, their glows igniting its brilliance.

The sides and top of the coffin were forged out of intricately designed panels of stained glass. The colors were as bright as jewels, and the images all too familiar. Sculpted out of shards of glass and slivers of gems were rows of tiny hawks, jackals, winged lions, beetles, hands, eyes, feathers, along with angular stylized symbols.

“They’re Egyptian hieroglyphs,” Wallace noted with a gasp.

“Formed out of stained glass.” Rachel sounded equally awed.

Wallace leaned closer. “The glyphs, though, are very old. Early Egyptian. Old Kingdom, I imagine. The Church must have copied them from some original funeral stele. Perhaps they were once carved on that sarcophagus in Bardsey. Before scrubbing them off, some monk must have kept a record, then re-created them here in stained glass.”

“Can you read it?” Gray asked, hoping it held some clue to the key.

Wallace ran a finger through the dust. “‘Here lies Meritaten, daughter of King Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti. She who crossed the seas and brought the sun god Ra to these cold lands.’”

By the time the professor was done, his hands trembled as much as his voice. “The dark queen.” He turned, his eyes wide with shock. “She’s an Egyptian princess.”

“Could that be possible?” Rachel asked.

Gray stared through the stained glass. He remembered Father Rye’s tale of Bardsey Island, of the claim that the wizard Merlin was buried there in a glass coffin. Was this the true source of that myth? Had word whispered out of the entombment here, confusing the name Meritaten with Merlin?

Gray ran the mythic history of the British Isles through his head. He remembered the priest’s description of the war of the Celts against a tribe of black-skinned monsters, the Fomorians. To the Celts, a tribe of displaced Egyptians would have seemed foreign and strange. And according to those same stories, the Fomorians shared their abundant knowledge of agriculture, a skill well honed by the Egyptians along the Nile.

Wallace straightened, deep in thought. “Some historians claim the ancient stone builders of England might have been Egyptian. At a Neolithic burial site at Tara in Ireland, they found a body decorated with ceramic faience beads, a skill not known to such people—but the beads were almost identical to those found in the tomb of Tutankhamen. And in England, near the city of Hull, massive boats were discovered preserved in a peat marsh. They were distinctly Egyptian in design and dated to 1400 B.C., well before Vikings or any other seafaring people came to our shores. I myself viewed an ancient stone at the British Museum, unearthed by a farmer in Wales. It shows a figure in Egyptian garb with pyramids in the background.”

Wallace shook his head, as if still struggling to believe it himself. “But here … here’s true proof.”

“And the key?” Seichan reminded them, coughing hoarsely, still holding a bloody cloth to her cheek.

Beyond the glass, a figure lay in the coffin. A bronze clasp closed the hinged lid. Gray knew they had to disturb the rest of this Egyptian princess. He reached and undid the clasp. He pulled the lid up and leaned it back.

A sweetly sick scent wafted out.

“My God!” Rachel exclaimed.

Though withered and desiccated, the body was still strangely preserved. Long black hair draped the reclining figure. Her dark skin was stretched smooth. Even her eyelashes were intact. Fine cloth wrapped her body from toe to neck. A gold crown topped her head, clearly Egyptian in design from the decorations in lapis lazuli.

The only other exposed parts of her body were her hands. They were folded over her chest, clutching a stone jug carved with more hieroglyphs. The jar was sealed on top with a gold lid in the shape of a hawk’s head.

“Look at her right hand,” Rachel said.

Gray noted the missing index finger.

Wallace’s attention fixed on the stone-and-gold jug. “The design looks like a canopic jar. Used to hold the embalmed organs of a king or queen.”

Gray knew they had to look inside. The Doomsday key had always been connected to the body of the dark queen. He reached into the casket and slipped the heavy container from the queen’s withered fingers.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Kowalski mumbled and backed up a step. “No way, no how. Thing’s got to be cursed.”

Or it’s the cure, Gray thought.

With their skill in agriculture, the Egyptians must have discovered some type of fungal parasite that could wreak havoc and lay waste to a village. A form of biowarfare. But did they also possess the counteragent?

Gray cradled the jar, gripped the hawk’s head, and tugged the lid off. He cringed inwardly, not knowing what to expect.

Curse or cure?

Wallace held a flashlight steady as Gray tipped it over.

From inside, a snow-white powder spilled out, so fine it poured like water. He remembered the story of Bernard and the Lactation Miracle, how the Black Madonna wept milk and cured him.

Gray knew what pooled in his palm. “It’s the cure,” he said, knowing it to be true. “This is the key.”

He poured the powder back into the canopic jar and sealed it tight.

“You might want to see this,” Seichan coughed out. She had moved to another of the caskets and opened it.

They joined her.

She pointed her light into the glass casket. A body lay wrapped in cloths, wearing a simple white robe with a cowl. His hands were also folded, clutching a small leather-bound book.

But it was the body’s face on which Seichan focused her light. The man looked as if he could have died yesterday. His skin, while slightly sunken, was unblemished, his lips red, his eyes closed as if in slumber. His brown hair looked freshly combed and trimmed straight across his brow.

“He’s not decayed at all,” Seichan said.

Rachel placed a hand to her throat. “The bodies of saints are said to be incorruptible. They don’t decay. This has to be Saint Malachy”—she glanced at the third coffin where a vague outline of another body could be seen—”or Saint Bernard.”

Wallace had another thought on the miraculous nature of the body’s incorruptibility. He stared over at the jar in Gray’s arms, then back to the remains.

“Canopic jars didn’t always hold embalmed organs.” He nodded toward the jug. “Sometimes they just stored embalming compounds. Oils, unguents, powders.”

Gray understood. “If the key was a curative, specifically against the fungal scourge, the powder must possess strong antifungal properties … possibly antibacterial, too.” He stared at the face of the saint. “And the main sources of bodily decay are fungi and bacteria. Embalm a corpse with such a compound, seal the coffin tight, and it would appear incorruptible.”

He also remembered the unusual health and longevity attributed to the monks of Bardsey Island. Such a powerful curative would have protected the monks against the usual pathogens that swept through the Middle Ages. No wonder the island had a reputation for healing.

Wallace’s eyes widened. “So the key …”

“It must originally have been an embalming compound. Perhaps one brought from Egypt or discovered in their new land. Either way, its medicinal use must have quickly been recognized. Back in those times, such a cure must have seemed miraculous.”

Wallace nodded. “And when paired with a deadly pathogen, it was a powerful combination. A bioweapon and its counteragent.”

“And the knowledge passed from the Egyptians, to the Celts, to the early Church. Where it was eventually bottled up and hidden here.”

“But that wasn’t the only knowledge passed along that historical line.” Wallace turned to face the Celtic cross. “For the longest time, archaeologists have debated how the Egyptians built the pyramids with such precision, such alignment. They would have needed a powerful surveying tool.”

Gray studied the cross with new eyes. Could this have been it?

Behind him, Rachel let out a small gasp of surprise. She had remained at the casket. She and Seichan were bent over the body. They had opened the book held in the saint’s hand.

“The name inside,” Seichan said grimly. “Mael Maedoc.”

“Saint Malachy,” Rachel concurred. She flipped pages of the book. “It’s his journal. Look at these numbers and the scribbled bits of Latin …”

She glanced back at Gray. “This is Malachy’s original prophecy of the popes. In his own handwriting.” Her voice grew even sharper. “But there’s more written! Pages and pages of it. I think the journal contains hundreds of additional prophecies. Divinations never reported by the Church.”

And maybe rightly so, Gray thought. The Church must have been frightened enough by the prophecy of the popes, of predictions about the end of the world. No wonder the journal was hidden away.

Before Rachel could explore the writings in more depth, Seichan reached to the book and flipped back to the front page. A symbol was drawn there. It was Egyptian. She glanced over at Gray. He recognized it. They had all seen it before.

He now knew why the Guild had grown so excited. The group had always been fixated on the roots of ancient knowledge, especially Egyptian. Father Giovanni must have suspected an Egyptian connection and let it leak out, sparking the Guild’s sudden interest.

He stared down at the symbol, one they’d encountered before while dealing with the Guild years ago: conical depictions of a sacred meal.

The symbol represented what was called shrewbread, or the bread of the gods. It was fed to the pharaohs to open their minds to divinity. Had the dark queen Meritaten brought more than just a miraculous embalming compound from Egypt? Had she carried forth some of the shrewbread? Had Malachy consumed it, touched the divine, and experienced his visions?

Gray stared down at the symbol drawn in the front of the book.

Before any of them could explore it further, a blast rocked down from above. This explosion was louder. It stung his ears. Smoke and rock dust swept out of the tunnel and into the chamber.

“They’re through,” Seichan said.

Gray swung to Kowalski. “Get your rifle and—”

But before the big man could move, Wallace deftly plucked the weapon out of Kowalski’s hands. The professor swung the rifle at them. He backed in a shuffle of steps toward the tunnel.

“I don’t think so,” Wallace said.

From the passageway, six soldiers rushed into the chamber, followed by a tall woman with a Sig Sauer pistol held in her hand.

Wallace glanced back. “‘Bout time you got down here, lassie.”

32
October 14, 4:15 P.M.
Clairvaux, France

Krista appreciated the shocked looks on their faces. Especially the Eurasian woman’s. Even through the blood, her fury shone back at Krista like an open flame. The anger only warmed Krista further. After all the hardships in getting here, this moment was almost worth it.

Almost.

“You didn’t think you were my only asset out here?” Krista asked calmly. “What’s trust without an extra bit of insurance?”

Wallace joined her with his rifle.

She nudged her elbow in his direction. “Wallace and I have been a good team from the start. Back since he first discovered that pathologic fungus. The professor was also kind enough to warn us about Father Giovanni’s betrayal. The priest should have been more careful to whom he made his confession.”

A small laugh escaped her, unbidden, bubbling forth from a mix of elation and raw-edged relief. She fought it back down, hating the moment of weakness. Anger took its place and helped anchor her.

She steadied her voice and glanced at Wallace. “What about the key? Is it here?”

Wallace grinned. “Aye, and we found it. It’s in that jar over yonder.”

Gray Pierce backed up a step. “We had a deal.”

She didn’t have time for such foolishness or naïveté. “Khattab, go get it.”

To discourage any last-minute treachery, Krista kept her pistol pointed at the Italian woman. With no choice, Gray handed over the stone jar.

In turn, Khattab left them something in exchange. As she had arranged, he placed the steel suitcase on the floor and retreated back with the key.

Gray stared down at the case. From his expression, he already guessed its contents.

She elaborated. “An incendiary bomb using kinetic fireballs. New design out of China. Burns for a very long time. Hot enough to incinerate the bricks off the walls. Can’t leave anything behind.”

Gray stepped forward. “At least take Rachel with you,” he pleaded. “Honor that much.”

She shook her head and felt an odd twinge of respect for the man. Along with a trickle of sorrow. She recognized the pain in those eyes, along with the wellspring from which it rose. Would anyone ever make such a sacrifice for her?

With an exasperated sigh, she offered the only bit of consolation she could. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t do any good. I wasn’t entirely truthful. The vial of toxin Wallace left in that drop box for Seichan has no cure. It’s a hundred percent fatal. She’s likely experiencing its effects already. Dying here will be swifter, less painful.”

Krista retreated from the shocked expression on his face. The Italian woman turned away and buried her face in Gray’s chest.

Krista turned to Khattab. “Let’s go. Make sure your man blows the entrance to the tunnel before evacuating.”

She was done here.

Or almost.

She turned and pointed her pistol at Wallace. His eyes widened. She pulled the trigger and shot him in the stomach. He didn’t cry out, just gasped and fell on his backside.

His face screwed up in a mask of pain as he supported himself with one arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

She shrugged and shifted the pistol toward his head.

“I’m Echelon,” he spat at her.

She froze, shocked. She struggled to make sense of the claim. Could it be true? Only a few people alive even knew the name Echelon.

She kept her pistol leveled. She remained unsure, but she knew one thing for certain. The only way to move up in this organization—there had to be room at the top.

She squeezed the trigger.

Wallace’s head cracked back, then forward. He collapsed to the floor.

She swung around and headed toward the tunnel. She expected no repercussions. Her orders had been to kill everyone.

All of them, she remembered.

“Let’s go!”

She hurried with the others up the tunnel. Khattab kept to her side with the stone jar cradled under one arm. Sunlight flowed ahead and drew them forward. A rubble pile led to freedom through the blasted door.

She wanted to be out of there as soon as they were aboveground. The prison was growing too hot. Gunfire echoed down to them.

She followed the soldiers topside. They scrambled as a group out of darkness and into sunlight. It took her an extra moment to realize how loud the gunfire was. It wasn’t until Khattab fell to one knee, then down to his side, that she recognized the danger.

Half his face was gone. The stone jar rolled from his dead arms out into the sunlit garden.

More men fell around her as she spun and dove behind a pillar.

The war had reached them.

Overhead, a loud eruption of flames drew her eye. She watched one of their helicopters explode in a fireball of smoke and flaming debris. It spun and slammed to the ground.

Her heart pounded.

What was going on?

Then across the garden, she spotted who was firing, who had ambushed her team. Men in French military uniforms. But more than that, she recognized the man in the lead.

Impossible.

It was that damned Indian.

Painter Crowe.

Her heart pounded—not with fear, but with a rage that burned away all reason. She reached into a pocket and pressed the transmitter. The ground bumped under her, and the explosion blasted. Smoke rolled up out of the hole in the ground.

There would be no rescue for his teammates.

Using the distraction and smoke, Krista fell back into the shadows. She didn’t fool herself. Trapped in the prison with her team overwhelmed, all was lost. She had only one objective left. She had made a promise to herself before she left Norway, a promise she intended to keep.

4:20 P.M.

The firefight ended as suddenly as it started.

Painter’s group had been caught off guard by the sudden appearance of a contingent of hostiles pouring out of a hole in the ground. His team had failed to spot the tunnel opening buried in the shadows of a blasted section of the cloisters.

But the last of the enemy had fallen.

The French soldiers spread out and through the garden. They kept rifles on their shoulders, moving swiftly and purposely.

Painter dropped back. He let out a shuddering breath. He searched the grounds. Where were Gray and the others?

Monk crossed toward him down the walkway. His rifle still smoked. His expression remained grim, worried for his friends.

The only warning was a shift of shadows. A woman rolled into view at a narrow doorway to Painter’s right. From a foot away, she had a pistol pointed at Painter’s chest.

She fired four times.

The blasts cracked like thunderclaps.

Only one shot grazed Painter’s shoulder. At the same time she fired, he was tackled to the side.

He landed hard on a knee and twisted around.

He watched the impact of the bullets pound John Creed out into the garden. The man toppled onto his back.

The woman screamed and came at Painter, bringing her gun to his face. He lunged up at her. He’d freed the blade from his boot and stabbed it deep into her belly.

Well trained, she ignored the pain and got the gun under his chin. Her eyes said it all. The blade could not stop her before she killed him.

“Think this is yours,” Painter said savagely and pressed the button on the WASP dagger’s hilt.

The explosion of compressed gas ripped into her belly. It pulverized and flash-froze her internal organs. Shock and pain burst through her, paralyzing her.

He shoved her away with both arms. She flew and crashed onto her back. Her mouth stretched into a silent scream of agony—then her body went limp. Dead.

Monk rushed past Painter into the garden. “Creed!”

Painter leaped to his feet and followed.

Creed lay on his back. Blood flowed from his lips, bubbled from the three shots to the chest. His eyes were huge, knowing what was coming.

Monk fell to his knees next to him. He tore off his jacket and bunched it up, readying a compression. “Hang on!”

All of them knew there was nothing to be done. Blood had pooled and spread over the hard-packed ground. The rounds must have been hollow-points, shredding on impact.

Creed fumbled blindly for Monk’s hand and gripped it tight. Monk covered it with his other palm.

“John …”

One last breath escaped. Creed’s hand slipped away. Monk tried to grab it back, as if that might help, but the man’s eyes went glassy.

“No,” Monk moaned.

Painter leaned down to offer what could only be cold comfort—but a new noise intruded. He swung around, dropping low. It came from the smoky hole.

He watched a group crawl into sight, climbing out of the hole, coughing and staggering.

One figure searched around, then stumbled out into the garden.

“Gray …”

4:22 P.M.

They’d only had seconds.

Gray had known the woman would blow the incendiary charge as soon as she was outside. So as the last soldier vanished up the tunnel, he had sprinted over to the Celtic cross and spun its wheel. The monks would have engineered some mechanism for sending the tombs back into hiding.

It was a natural enough guess.

Spin the wheel, spin the floors.

He had been right.

Turning the wheel flipped the tombs back below and rolled the spiral designs up.

As the floors rotated, Gray yelled for Kowalski to toss the suitcase bomb down into the cavity below. He wasn’t sure if it would be enough protection, but they had no other option. Afterward, they fled to the walls and dropped to their stomachs.

When the explosion blew, the circular plates of the floor jumped up, dancing on flames—then crashed back down. The heat seared like a blast furnace. Smoke choked, but most of it got sucked up the tunnel as up a chimney flue.

It was the conflagration below that remained the danger.

The fires baked the stones under them. Off to the side, the bronze spiral began to glow through the smoky pall.

Gray called for them to retreat to the tunnel.

Crouched there, Gray heard a firefight echoing down from above—then the gunfire suddenly ended.

He didn’t know what was happening. He heard a few more shots and then someone yelled. He knew that voice. He almost shook with relief.

Monk.

As the heat grew worse, Gray had led the others up the tunnel and back out into the open. Bodies lay everywhere. French soldiers surrounded them. He stumbled into the garden.

“They’re with us!” Painter shouted, pushing forward.

Gray struggled to understand what his boss was doing here, how he could be here. But explanations would have to wait. Searching around, Gray spotted a familiar stone-and-gold object rolled up against a bush.

The canopic jar.

Relieved, he rushed over, dropped to his knees, and collected it up.

The lid was still in place.

Painter joined him.

“It’s the Doomsday key,” Gray explained.

“Keep it safe.” Painter turned as Seichan joined them. Gray’s boss seemed unsurprised at her being there.

Seichan faced Painter and shook her head.

“We had to attempt it,” he told her cryptically.

“It still failed. I warned you from the start that the Guild would never trust me fully again.” Seichan turned her back and stared into the garden toward the one victim who hadn’t truly escaped. “And I shouldn’t have trusted the Guild.”

Rachel stood numbly, her face turned up to the sky. They were all free, but she was still trapped.

Even now, as Gray watched, her legs trembled.

The heat, the stress, it had worn her body past endurance.

With her face still in the sun, she went boneless and collapsed.

10:32 P.M.
Troyes, France

Hours later, Gray sat on a bench in the corridor outside Rachel’s hospital room. Monk and a French internist were inside. Rachel had been hooked to an intravenous drip and pumped full of a cocktail of antibiotics. Though she was out of danger, it had been a close call. She’d had to be evacuated by helicopter to the medical facility in Troyes.

But at least she was awake again.

Gray picked at the bandage around his hand. His wounds had been debrided, stitched up, and wrapped. But he knew he was far from healed.

A door opened down the hall. He watched Seichan step out of her room. She wore a hospital gown and carried a pack of cigarettes. She glanced down the hall, clearly wondering where she could smoke in a hospital. She turned in his direction and suddenly froze.

She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. He suspected she would have to get accustomed to that state. The Guild would be hunting for her. The United States still had orders to capture her. It had taken all of Painter’s skill to keep her presence secret. He was still off putting out a thousand fires, holding the world at bay.

But they couldn’t hide forever.

None of them.

Gray patted the seat next to him.

For half a minute, Seichan remained standing, then finally walked over. Half her face was in a bandage. She didn’t sit. She stood with her arms crossed. Her eyes were slightly glazed by morphine. She stared toward Rachel’s door.

“I didn’t poison her,” she said in a hoarse whisper. So soon after surgery, it wasn’t good for her to talk. But Gray knew she had to.

“I know,” Gray said. “She’s got double pneumonia. Too long in the rain, too much stress, a low-grade viral infection.”

Seichan sank to the bench.

Painter had already explained most of the story. A month ago he had approached Seichan, tracked her down using the implant. She hadn’t discovered the bug on her own. In fact, according to Painter, she’d been shocked, angry, and hurt by the betrayal when he finally told her. But he offered her a chance, convinced her to work for him, to attempt one last time to infiltrate the Guild. Painter had caught wind of the pending order to haul her in for interrogation. He knew she still offered the best chance to discover who ran the Guild.

She had agreed and waited for the right mission to arise to prove herself to the Guild, to try to insinuate her way back into their fold. She never suspected it would drive her into conflict with Gray. But once committed, there was no turning back.

“I had to maintain the ruse,” Seichan said, referring to both the poisoning and her overall subterfuge. “I switched thermoses in Hawkshead. I pretended to dose Rachel, but then afterward I destroyed the biotoxin. I knew there were spotters watching our every move. My phone was being monitored. Plus I already had suspicions about Wallace Boyle.”

Gray imagined that those suspicions had less to do with any insight about the professor and more to do with her usual state of constant paranoia, but in this particular case, they were well placed.

“It was only when we reached France, when we all split up, that I had a chance to get away from Wallace, to steal a disposable phone. After I killed the assassins in the woods—”

“You called Painter. You knew then the mission was a bust and let him know it.”

She nodded. “I had no choice but to break cover. We needed help.”

That they did.

During the same phone conversation, Painter had asked her to continue her charade. With Wallace still an unknown and the death count climbing in the Midwest, the world needed that key. Even if it meant staying in bed with the devil.

A long stretch of silence rose between them. It was awkward and tense. She fingered her pack of cigarettes and looked ready to bolt.

Gray finally broached a subject he’d brought up before.

He turned to her. “You told me long ago that you were one of the good guys, that you were really working against the Guild as a double agent. Was that true?”

She stared at the floor for a long time, then glanced sidelong at him. A hardness crept into her voice and her eyes. “Does it matter now?”

Gray studied her, matching her gaze. He tried to read her, but she was a wall. In the past, during missions where their paths had crossed, she had ultimately helped him. Her methods were brutal—like murdering the Venetian curator—but who was he to judge? He had not walked in her shoes. He sensed a well of loneliness, of hard survival, of abuse that was beyond his world.

He was saved from responding by the creak of a door. Monk pushed out into the hall, followed by the hospital’s internist. Monk’s gaze swept between Gray and Seichan. The residual tension must have felt like a cold front.

Monk waved to the internist as he departed, then pointed to the door. “She’s tired, but you can visit for a few minutes … but only a few minutes. And I don’t know if you’ve heard, but her uncle is out of his coma. Vigor woke up this morning. And won’t shut up, I hear. Anyway, I think the good news went a long way toward perking her up.”

Gray stood.

Seichan rose, too, but she turned toward her hospital room.

Gray stopped her with a touch on her arm. She visibly flinched. “Why don’t you come inside, too?”

She just continued to stare down the hall.

Gray’s fingers tightened on her arm. “You owe her. You put her through hell. Just speak to her.”

She sighed, responding to the necessity and taking the offer as a punishment. She allowed herself to be led to the door. Gray hadn’t meant the invitation as a chastisement, but at least it got her moving.

Seichan had been standing outside long enough.

Inside the room, Rachel was sitting up in bed. She smiled when she recognized Gray, but a flash of anger lit her eyes when she saw who followed him inside. Her smile faded.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Well, I’m not poisoned.”

Seichan knew the barb was directed at her. But she took it without comment. She walked past Gray and took the seat next to the bed.

Rachel leaned away.

Seichan sat quietly, her fingertips resting on the bed rail. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, letting Rachel’s silent anger wash over her. Slowly Rachel sank back into the bed.

Only then did Seichan whisper, not tearfully, not coldly, just plainly, “I’m sorry.”

Gray hung back. He suspected that Seichan needed to speak those words as much as Rachel needed to hear them. They spoke haltingly, quietly after that. Gray drifted back toward the door. He knew it was a conversation he had no part in.

He returned to the corridor and found Monk still seated on the bench. Gray joined him and noted that Monk clutched his cell phone between his two palms.

“Did you speak to Kat?”

Monk slowly nodded his head.

“Is she still angry with you for putting yourself in harm’s way?”

Monk just kept nodding, not stopping.

They remained quiet for a few breaths.

Gray finally asked because he knew his friend well. “How are you doing?”

Monk sighed. A longer stretch of silence followed before he spoke. His words were calm but masked a well of pain. “He was a good kid. I should’ve been watching over him better.”

“But you couldn’t—”

Monk cut him off, not angry, just tired. “You know, I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it yet.”

Gray respected that. Instead, they just sat quietly in each other’s company. And that was enough for both of them.

After a time, a familiar whistling arose down the hall. Kowalski appeared. Somehow his partner had come through everything without a scratch, but for security reasons he was still restricted to the hospital.

As he sauntered toward them, Gray saw that he held something in one of his large mitts. Once Kowalski spotted them on the bench, he hurriedly shoved his arm behind his back. Gray remembered a certain fixation Kowalski had back in Hawkshead.

As he drew abreast of them, Gray called over. “So is that a gift for Rachel?”

Kowalski stopped, suddenly sheepish. Caught, he pulled the teddy bear into view. It was white, plushy, and dressed in a nurse’s uniform. He stared down at it, over to Rachel’s room, then finally glared at Gray and shoved the bear at him.

“Of course it is,” he growled.

Gray took the bear.

Kowalski stomped off heavily, no longer whistling.

“What was that all about?” Monk asked.

Gray leaned back. “You know, I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it yet.”

33
October 23, 10:14 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

They all met at Senator Gorman’s office on Capitol Hill.

Painter was seated next to General Metcalf. On his other side, Dr. Lisa Cummings sat with her legs crossed.

One toe of her shoe lightly brushed Painter’s pant leg. It was not done casually. He and Lisa had been apart for too long. And since she had returned from vacation, she had been busy, often red-eyeing out to the Midwest to oversee the medical crisis out there. The two of them captured whatever spare moments they could together.

Metcalf continued reporting on the manufacture of the antifungal compound. Painter had already reviewed the report.

Instead of listening, he watched his girlfriend’s reflection in the window behind the senator. Lisa had her hair up in a French twist and wore a conservative suit to match the mood of the meeting. He daydreamed about undoing that twist, unbuttoning that shirt.

“We’re spraying all the production fields,” Metcalf continued, “covering a safety zone of fifteen miles around each site. The EPA has mobilized with the National Guard to monitor and continue testing samples of surrounding vegetation for another thirty miles out.”

Gorman nodded. “On the international front, all the planted fields have been scraped and sprayed. We can only hope we’ve stamped this out in time.”

Lisa spoke up. “If not, we’ll be ready. The initial human trials have been successful. Minimal adverse reactions. The early cases have responded well. It will be a boon to medicine across the board. While we have a slew of powerful antibiotics, our arsenal of antifungals, especially for systemic infections, has been limited and is burdened by high toxicity levels. With such a new compound readily available—”

“And free,” Painter added.

She nodded. “We’ll keep this disaster in check.”

“Speaking of free,” Gorman said. “I dropped in on Ivar Karlsen after visiting the Viatus production plant for the drug.”

Painter drew his attention back. Karlsen was in a Norwegian penal facility, still awaiting trial. He continued to oversee business from his cell. As partial restitution, the man had voluntarily turned over the full resources of his corporation’s biotechnology infrastructure to manufacture the compound. It was shocking how quickly they were able to start mass-producing it.

Lisa had tried explaining to Painter that the antifungal compound was derived from a genus of lichen found only in sub-Saharan Africa, that its chemical structure attacked a unique sterol found only in fungal cell membranes, making it both effective and safe for treating both mammals and plants.

Painter glazed out after further details. All he needed to know was that it worked.

“You should have seen his prison cell,” Gorman said. “It’s practically a suite at the Ritz.”

“But it’s a suite he won’t be checking out of any time soon,” Painter added. If at all, considering the man’s age.

Metcalf stood. “If we’re all done here, I still have matters to address back at DARPA headquarters.”

Gorman stood and shook his hand. “Whatever I can do to help, I’m in your debt.” The words were spoken to Metcalf, but Painter noted Gorman’s glance in his direction.

After events in Norway, they’d been forced to reveal Sigma’s existence. The senator would have kept digging anyway and only made matters worse. The knowledge also gave them a powerful ally on Capitol Hill. Already Painter had noted a change in sentiment regarding Sigma among the various U.S. intelligence agencies. For once, the wolves at their door had been dragged back. Maybe not leashed completely, but it allowed Painter more freedom to fully secure Sigma.

And he knew they would need it.

The Guild would come gunning for them.

After saying their good-byes, Painter and Lisa walked with General Metcalf through the halls of power. Painter was still waiting for confirmation from the general on one extremely sensitive matter.

“Sir …,” Painter began, meaning only to remind Metcalf.

“She’s your problem,” the general said instead. “I can’t countermand the order to have her apprehended. Her crimes are too tangled internationally. She’ll have to stay low, and by low, I mean crawling through the sewers.” Metcalf stared over at him. “But if you think she’ll be an asset?”

“I do.”

“So be it. But it’s on your head.”

Painter always appreciated such enthusiastic support. With a final few words, Metcalf headed off toward another meeting on the Hill. That left Painter alone with Lisa as they crossed into the morning sunshine.

He checked his watch. The funeral service started in another hour. He had just enough time to shower and change. Despite the bright day, a somberness settled through him. John Creed had died saving his life. Since Painter had sent men and women into harm’s way all too often, he had honed a level of detachment. It was the only way to stay sane, to make the hard choices.

He couldn’t do it here.

Not with Creed.

A hand slipped into his. Lisa tugged and leaned into his arm.

“It’ll get better,” she promised him.

He knew she was right, but somehow that only made it worse. To move past meant forgetting. Not all of it, but some of it.

And he never wanted to forget John’s sacrifice.

Not any of it.

3:33 P.M.

Monk wandered through the rolling hills of Arlington Cemetery with Kat at his side, hand in hand, bundled in long coats. It was a crisp fall day with the massive oaks fiery in their splendor. The funeral service had ended an hour ago. But Monk hadn’t been ready to leave.

Kat had never said a word.

She understood.

Everyone had shown up. Even Rachel had flown in from Rome for the day. She headed back tomorrow morning. She didn’t like leaving her uncle alone for long. Vigor had just gotten out of the hospital two days ago, but he was recuperating well.

During their slow walk, Monk and Kat had wandered in a full circle and ended up back where they had started. John Creed’s grave sat atop a small knoll under the limbs of a dogwood. The branches were already bare, skeletal against the blue sky, but come spring they’d be full of white blossoms.

It was a good spot.

Monk had wanted everyone gone for a moment of privacy at the gravesite, but he saw that someone still knelt there, both hands gripping the headstone. The posture was a sigil of raw grief.

Monk stopped.

It was a young man wearing army dress blues. Monk vaguely recognized him from the funeral. The man had sat as stiffly as everyone else. Apparently he’d also wanted an extra moment to say good-bye.

Kat tightened her fingers on Monk’s hand. He turned to her. She shook her head and drew him away. Monk gave her a questioning look, sensing that she knew more than he did.

“That’s John’s partner.”

Monk glanced back and knew she wasn’t referring to a business partner. He hadn’t known. He suddenly remembered a conversation he’d had with Creed. Monk had teasingly asked him what had gotten him drummed out of the service after two tours in Iraq. Creed’s answer had been two words.

Don’t ask.

Monk had thought he was just telling him to mind his own business. Instead, he was answering Monk’s question.

Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Kat urged Monk away, allowing the man to grieve in private. “He’s still in the service,” she explained.

Monk followed. He now understood why the man had sat so stiffly earlier. Even now, the depth of his grief had to be kept a private matter. Only alone could the man truly say good-bye.

Kat leaned into him. He put his arm around her. They both knew what the other was thinking. They never wanted to say that particular good-bye.

9:55 P.M.

Gray stood under the spray of the shower. He had his eyes closed and heard the telltale clank from his apartment’s plumbing. He was about to run out of hot water.

Still, he didn’t move, enjoying every last bit of steam and blistering heat. He stretched kinks and rubbed knots. He’d had an intense workout and now paid the price. After being bruised and battered, he should have used more restraint. He’d just had the stitches out of his hand two days ago.

With a final rattle, the water quickly turned cool. Gray turned the faucet off, reached for a towel, and dried himself in the steamy warmth.

The brief cold spray took him back to the storm on Bardsey Island. Earlier today he had talked to Father Rye on the phone, to make sure Rufus was settling in as a church dog. Gray had also called to make certain Owen Bryce got the wired money to cover any repairs to the ferry they’d stolen.

Life was settling back to normal on Bardsey after a hard series of storms.

On the phone, Gray also questioned Father Rye about dark queens and Black Madonnas. The good father was certainly a font of knowledge. Gray suspected this month’s phone bill would be sky-high. Still, he had learned something interesting, that some historians believed the Black Madonna might have its roots in the worship of the goddess Isis, the queen mother of Egypt.

So there again was that Egyptian connection.

But after the explosion beneath the cloister, all further evidence had been destroyed: the glass caskets, the bodies, even Malachy’s lost book of prophecies.

All gone.

And probably just as well. The future was best left unknown.

But Malachy’s prophecies of the popes ended with a bit of a foggy mystery. According to Rachel’s uncle, Malachy had numbered all the popes on his list, with the exception of the very last one, Petrus Romanus, the one who would see the end of the world. This last apocalyptic pope had been assigned no number.

“This suggests to some scholars,” Vigor had explained from his hospital bed, “that perhaps an unknown number of popes remain unnamed between the current pope and the last. And that the world might go on for a little bit longer.”

Gray certainly hoped so.

Finally buffed dry, he wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the bedroom. He discovered he wasn’t alone.

“I thought you were leaving,” Gray said.

She lay tangled in the sheets, one long leg bared to the hip. She stretched like a lithe lioness waking, one arm over her head, exposing a hint of breast. As she lowered her arm, she lifted the bedsheet. Her body still lay hidden in folds and shadows—but the invitation was plain.

“Again?” he asked.

An eyebrow tipped higher, followed by a shadow of a smile.

Gray sighed, undid his towel, and tossed it aside.

A man’s work was never done.

Epilogue
October 23, 11:55 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter headed down the last flight of stairs to the nethermost region of Sigma Command. It was only a few minutes before midnight, an inauspicious moment to be visiting a morgue.

But the package had arrived only an hour ago. The work had to be done swiftly. Afterward, all evidence would be destroyed, cremated on site. He reached the morgue.

Sigma’s head pathologist, Dr. Malcolm Reynolds, was waiting and led him inside. “I have the body ready.”

Painter followed the pathologist to the neighboring room. The smell struck him first: overcooked meat gone bad. A figure lay under a sheet on the table. Wheeled next to it was a coffin. The casket’s diplomatic seal had been sliced open by Dr. Reynolds.

It had taken Painter a huge effort to get the body released in secret from France and delivered here with false papers.

“It’s not pretty,” Malcolm warned. “The body sat in that makeshift oven for several hours before someone thought to move it.”

Painter was not squeamish—at least not much. He pulled back the sheet and exposed Dr. Wallace Boyle’s corpse. The man’s face was bloated, blackened on one side, a purplish red on the other. Painter imagined the charbroiled side had been facedown on the brick floor of the subterranean chamber. He remembered Gray’s description of the incendiary charge and how it had baked the stones.

“Help me roll him on his stomach,” Painter said. Together, they got Wallace over on his belly. “I’ll need something to shave him.” Malcolm disappeared.

As Painter waited, he stared down at the gaunt corpse. Wallace had claimed to be a member of Echelon, and according to Seichan, that name was rumored to denote the Guild’s true leaders. She had no other information, except for a darker rumor, a story she’d only heard once.

Malcolm returned with an electric clipper and a disposable razor. Working quickly, Painter used the clipper to remove the hair from the back of Wallace’s head, then shaved it smooth.

As he dragged the razor, he proved the rumor was true.

A small tattoo, about the size of Painter’s thumbnail, had been inked at the back of the skull. It depicted the tools of a mason: drafting compasses straddling an L-square.

The symbol represented Freemasonry, a worldwide fraternal organization. But the image in the center of the symbol was wrong. The square and the compass usually framed the letter G, standing for God or Geometry.

But sometimes it stood for Guild.

Painter knew Seichan’s terrorist organization had no real name, at least not spoken below the level of its leaders. Was this symbol and its connection to the Freemasons the source of the more commonly used name?

Painter studied the tattoo. In the middle of the symbol were inked a sickle moon and a star. He had never seen anything like it. Whoever these people were, they weren’t Freemasons.

With the symbol exposed, Painter grew more edgy. He had found what he needed.

“Burn the body,” he ordered Malcolm. “Down to ash.”

Painter didn’t want anyone to know what he’d learned. Much remained unknown about Seichan’s former masters. But he had two pieces to the larger puzzle.

The name Echelon … and the strange symbol.

For now, that would do.

But it wasn’t over—not for either side.

Malcolm asked him a question as he left. “What does it mean?”

Painter answered, knowing it to be true, “A war is coming.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE TO READERS:
TRUTH OR FICTION

Everything in this book is true, except for what’s not. I thought I’d end this adventure by splitting those hairs. First, two elements gave birth to this story. I came upon each independently, but I knew there had to be a connection and that Sigma would need to investigate.

The History of the Celtic Cross. There is an intriguing and startling analysis of the history of the cross and the possibility that it was used as a navigational tool in ancient times. For a slew of details, diagrams, and analyses, I refer you to the fascinating book The Golden Thread of Time by Crichton Miller.

The History of Neolithic England. The details in this book about the possibility of Egyptians setting up colonies in England are true. For a more thorough study, I suggest reading Kingdom of the Ark by Lorraine Evans. Also, in regard to the Fomorian tribes found living in Ireland by the invading Celts, some historians have theorized that their descriptions (dark-skinned and skilled at agriculture) might refer to a lost tribe of Egyptians.

Ancient Symbols. The novel describes a number of symbols and the way these images were often transformed and reimagined across the centuries. Such theories have a basis in fact, including the story of the consecration crosses found carved in medieval churches.

Saints. As mentioned at the opening of the book, Malachy was an Irish saint who lived during the twelfth century and is said to have performed many miraculous healings, along with recording his famous prophecies of the popes. He was indeed buried in a tomb at Clairvaux Abbey, and the ruins of that abbey do oddly enough lie within the grounds of a maximum-security prison (a prison started by Napoleon). There are weekly tours of the ruins for two euros a head. The stories concerning the life of Saint Bernard (the Lactation Miracle, his association with the Knights Templar, and his support for the cult of the Black Madonna) are historical. For more about the Celtic saints and culture in general, I recommend How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill and The Quest for the Celtic Key by Karen Ralls-MacLeod and Ian Robertson.

As for the prophecies, here are Malachy’s descriptions of the last few popes in history:

1. Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) is described with the words Flos Florum, or “flower of flowers.” His heraldic coat of arms bore three lilies.

2. Pope John Paul I (1978) is named by Malachy as De Medietate Lunae, or “of the half moon.” His papacy lasted one month, crossing from one half moon to the next.

3. Pope John Paul II (1978–2005) is designated as De Labore Solis, or “from the labor of the sun,” which was a common metaphor for a solar eclipse. The pope was born on the day of a solar eclipse.

4. Pope Benedict XVI (2005–) is described as De Gloria Olivae, or the “glory of the olive.” The Benedictine order, from which the pope took his name, has the olive branch as its symbol.

5. Then there is the last pope, the one who would oversee the world’s end: Petrus Romanus. His description is the longest of them all.

In Latin:

In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, et Iudex tremendus iudicabit populum. Finis.

Translated:

In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the term of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge His people. The End.

But as Vigor mentioned to Gray, this last pope is not numbered as the others were before him. Some have interpreted this to mean that there could be more popes between Pope Benedict XVI and the last pope. I guess only time will reveal the truth.

And Sinners.

1. Biofuels: The amount of corn needed to fill an SUV tank full of ethanol would indeed feed a starving person for a year. And it is believed that the shift from farming food to farming fuel has resulted in a spike in food prices.

2. Genetically Modified Foods: Volumes of material, both pro and con, have been written about GM foods. For some disturbing reading on this topic, I can recommend two books. In regard to the lax regulation of the industry, Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith should be required reading. As to some more sinister aspects, I found Seeds of Destruction by F. William Engdahl to be frightening (specifically regarding the contraceptive seeds mentioned in the novel).

3. Bees: Do we know what is killing all the bees? According to the well-documented book A Spring without Bees by Michael Schacker, it seems there is an answer, one that has been both suppressed and ignored. And France’s bees are coming back.

4. Weapons of Destruction: In this novel, I use WASP daggers, thermobaric warheads, and kinetic fireballs to cause much mayhem. The weapons are all real.

Overpopulation. The Club of Rome is a real organization that does a lot of great work. And in their report titled The Limits to Growth, they do lay out the doomsday scenario described by Ivar Karlsen, in which, if left unchecked, the world is headed toward a tipping point where 90 percent of the population could be wiped out.

The Doomsday Book. As mentioned in the introduction, it is a real historical tome. And some entries are indeed cryptically listed as “wasted.” It was compiled during a time when friction continued between Christians and pagans, especially in the borderlands.

Location, Location, Location. Most of the places in this story are real, as are the stories associated with them.

1. Akershus Fortress does lie at the edge of Oslo’s harbor, and cruise ships do dock near there. As to its history of executions, those are also true, including the story of the mint master Henrik Christofer Meyer, who died for his crimes and whose forehead was branded by King Frederick IV.

2. Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a real depository that has gained the nickname “The Doomsday Vault.” All the details of the facility are accurate, including one of its main means of defense: polar bears.

3. Bardsey Island truly is Avalon. All the stories and mythologies of the island are accurate, including Merlin’s Tomb, Lord Newborough’s Crypt, and the twenty thousand buried saints. Also, the Bardsey apple continues to grow, and cuttings can now be purchased of this ancient tree. As to those nasty currents around the island, those are also real. So make that ferry crossing only in the best of weather!

4. The Lake District of England is indeed a land of enchantment, dotted by rings of standing stones, and, of course, is the home of the industrious Fell Ponies. There are also many, many peat bogs in the region, though nothing as forested or as fiery as in this book. But subterranean peat fires have been known to burn for centuries, even through snowy winters. And such fires are still used to make the finest Scotch (but that’s a whole other story). As to the bog mummies, they are also real—as is the retail shop in the hamlet of Hawkshead that exclusively sells teddy bears (Sixpenny Bears).

So go buy Kowalski a bear … I guess he deserves one.

THE LAST ORACLE

A Sigma Force Novel

James Rollins

Dedication

To Shay and Bryce,
because you both rock

Map

FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD

The greatest blessings granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.

—SOCRATES, ON THE
ORACLE OF DELPHI

Ancient Greeks, with their pantheon of gods, held an abiding belief in the powers of prophecy. They revered those who could read the portents in the entrails of goats, who saw the future in the rising smoke of a sacrificial fire, who predicted events based on the auguries of tossed bones. But one individual was held in the highest esteem: the mystical Oracle of Delphi.

For almost two thousand years, a succession of closely guarded women resided within the temple to Apollo on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Each generation, a single woman ascended to the seat of prophecy and took the name Pythia. While under a vapor-induced trance, she answered questions about the future—from the mundane to the profound.

Her admirers included leading figures of Greek and Roman history: Plato, Sophocles, Aristotle, Plutarch, Ovid. Even early Christians revered her. Michelangelo painted her prominently on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, foretelling the coming of Christ.

But was she a charlatan, duping the masses with cryptic answers? No matter the truth, one fact is beyond dispute. Revered by kings and conquerors across the ancient world, Pythia’s prophecies changed the course of human history.

And while much about her remains shrouded in mystery and mythology, one truth has emerged. In 2001, archaeologists and geologists discovered a strange alignment of tectonic plates under Mount Parnassus that has been shown to vent hydrocarbon gases, including ethylene, which is capable of inducing a trancelike euphoria and hallucinations, the very vapors described in the historical record.

So while science has discovered one of Pythia’s secrets, the ultimate truth remains unknown:

Did the Oracle truly foresee the future? Or was it divine madness?

Man, know thyself, and thou wilt know the universe and the gods.

—INSCRIPTION AT THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI

PROLOGUE

A.D. 398
Mount Parnassus
Greece

They had come to slay her.

The woman stood at the temple’s portico. She shivered in her thin garment, a simple shift of white linen belted at the waist, but it was not the cold of predawn that iced her bones.

Below, a torchlight procession flowed up the slopes of Mount Parnassus like a river of fire. It followed the stone-paved road of the Sacred Way, climbing in switchbacks up toward the temple of Apollo. The beat of sword on shield accompanied their progress, a full cohort of the Roman legion, five hundred strong. The road wound through broken monuments and long-ransacked treasuries. Whatever could burn had been set to torch.

As the firelight danced over the ruins, the flames cast a shimmering illusion of better times, a fiery restoration of former glory: treasuries overflowing with gold and jewels, legions of statues carved by the finest artisans, milling crowds gathered to hear the prophetic words of the Oracle.

But no more.

Over the past century, Delphi had been brought low by invading Gauls, by plundering Thracians, but most of all, by neglect. Few now came to seek the words of the Oracle: a goat herder questioning a wife’s fidelity, or a sailor seeking good omens for a voyage across the Gulf of Corinth.

It was the end of times, the end of the Oracle of Delphi. After prophesying for thirty years, she would be the last to bear the name Pythia.

The last Oracle of Delphi.

But with this burden came one final challenge.

Pythia turned toward the east, where the sky had begun to lighten.

Oh, that rosy Eos, goddess of dawn, would hurry Apollo to tether his four horses to his Sun chariot.

One of Pythia’s sisters, a young acolyte, stepped out of the temple behind her. “Mistress, come away with us,” the younger woman begged. “It is not too late. We can still escape with the others to the high caves.”

Pythia placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder. Over the past night, the other women had fled to the rugged heights where the caves of Dionysus would keep them safe. But Pythia had a final duty here.

“Mistress, surely there is no time to perform this last prophecy.”

“I must.”

“Then do it now. Before it is too late.”

Pythia turned away. “We must wait for dawn of the seventh day. That is our way.”

As the sun had set last night, Pythia had begun her preparations. She had bathed in Castilia’s silver spring, drank from the Kassotis spring, and burned bay leaves on an altar of black marble outside the temple. She had followed the ritual precisely, the same as the first Pythia thousands of years ago.

Only this time, the Oracle had not been alone in her purifications.

At her side had been a girl, barely past her twelfth summer.

Such a small creature and of such strange manner.

The child had simply stood naked in the spring waters while the older woman had washed and anointed her. She’d said not a word, merely stood with an arm out, opening and closing her fingers, as if grasping for something only she could see. What god so suffered the child, yet blessed her just the same? Surely not even Apollo. Yet the child’s words thirty days ago could come only from the gods. Words that had plainly spread and stoked the fires that now climbed toward Delphi.

Oh, that the child had never been brought here.

Pythia had been content to allow Delphi to fade into obscurity. She remembered the words spoken by one of her predecessors, long dead for centuries, an ominous portent.

Emperor Augustus had asked of her dead sister, “Why has the Oracle grown so silent?”

Her sister had responded, “A Hebrew boy, a god who rules among the blessed, bids me leave this house…”

Those words proved to be a true prophecy. The cult of Christ rose to consume the empire and destroyed any hope for a return to the old ways.

Then a moon ago, the strange girl had been brought to her steps.

Pythia glanced away from the flames and toward the adytum, the inner sanctum of Apollo’s temple. The girl waited inside.

She was an orphan from the distant township of Chios. Over the ages, many had hauled such children here, seeking to abandon such burdens upon the sisterhood. Most were turned away. Only the most ideal girls were allowed to stay: straight of limb, clear of eye, and unspoiled. Apollo would never accept a vessel of lesser quality for his prophetic spirit.

So when this willow branch of a girl had been presented naked to the steps of Apollo’s temple, Pythia had given her hardly a glance. The child was unkempt, her dark hair knotted and tangled, her skin marked with pox scars. But deeper, Pythia had sensed something wrong with the child. The way she rocked back and forth. Even her eyes stared without truly seeing.

Her patrons had claimed the child was touched by the gods. That she could tell the number of olives in a tree with merely a glance, that she could declare when a sheep would lamb with but a touch of her hand.

Upon hearing such stories, Pythia’s interest had stirred. She called the girl to join her at the entrance to the temple. The child obeyed, but she moved as if disconnected, as if the winds themselves propelled her upward. Pythia had to draw her by hand to sit on the top step.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asked the thin child.

“Her name is Anthea,” one of her patrons declared from below.

Pythia kept her gaze focused on the child. “Anthea, do you know why you’ve been brought here?”

“Your house is empty,” the child finally mumbled to the floor.

So at least she can speak. Pythia glanced to the temple’s interior. The hearth fire burned in the center of the main hall. It was indeed empty at the moment, but the child’s words seemed to whisper at something more.

Maybe it was her manner. So strange, so distant, as if she stood with one leg in this world and the other beyond this realm.

The child glanced up with those clear blue eyes, so full of innocence, so in contrast with what spilled next from her lips.

“You are old. You will die soon.”

From below, her patron attempted to scold her, but Pythia kept her words soft. “We all die eventually, Anthea. It is the order of the world.”

She shook her head. “Not the Hebrew boy.”

Those strange eyes bored into her. The hairs along Pythia’s arms shivered. Plainly the girl had been taught the catechism of the cult of Christ and his bloody cross. But her words again. Such strange cadence.

The Hebrew boy…

It reminded her of her ancestor’s prophecy of doom.

“But another will come,” the girl continued. “Another boy.”

“Another boy?” Pythia leaned closer. “Who? From where?”

“From my dreams.” The girl rubbed the heel of one hand at her ear.

Sensing there were depths to the girl that remained untapped, Pythia plumbed them. “This boy?” she asked. “Who is he?”

What the child said next drew a gasp from the gathered crowd—even they recognized blasphemy when they heard it.

“He is the brother of the Hebrew boy.” The child then clasped tight to the hem of Pythia’s skirt. “He burns in my dreams…and he will burn everything. Nothing will last. Not even Rome.”

For the past month, Pythia had attempted to learn more of this doom, even taking the girl into the sisterhood’s fold. But the child had seemed only to retreat into herself, going mute. Still, there was one way to learn more.

If the girl were truly blessed, the power of Apollo’s breath—his prophetic vapors—might burn free what was locked within the girl’s strangeness.

But was there enough time?

A touch to her elbow interrupted her reverie and drew her back to the present. “Mistress, the sun…,” her younger sister urged.

Pythia focused to the east. The eastern skies blazed, heralding the coming sunrise. Below, shouts rose from the Roman legion. Word of the girl had spread. Prophecies of doom had traveled far…even to the ears of the emperor. An Imperial courier had demanded the child be delivered to Rome, declaring her demon-plagued.

Pythia had refused. The gods had sent this child to her threshold, to Apollo’s temple. Pythia would not relinquish the girl without first testing her, putting her to the question.

To the east, the first rays of the sun etched the morning skies.

The seventh day of the seventh month dawned.

They had waited long enough.

Pythia turned her back on the fiery legion. “Come. We must hurry.”

She swept into the temple’s interior. Flames greeted her here, too, but they were the welcoming warmth from the temple’s sacred hearth. Two of her elder sisters still tended the flames, too old to make the harsh climb up to the caves.

She nodded her gratitude to each in turn, then hurried past the hearth.

At the back of the temple, stairs led down toward the private sanctum. Only those who served the Oracle were allowed to enter the subterranean adytum. As she descended, marble turned to raw limestone. The stairs emptied into a small cavern. The cave had been discovered ages ago by a goat herder, who upon nearing the cavern opening, fell under the sway of Apollo’s sweet-smelling vapors and succumbed to strange visions.

Would that such gifts last one more sunrise.

Pythia found the child waiting inside the cave. The girl was dressed in an alb too large for her and sat cross-legged beside the bronze tripod that supported the sacred omphalos, a waist-high domed rock that represented the navel of the world, the center of the universe.

The only other decoration in the cave was a single raised seat, resting on three legs. It stood over a natural crack in the floor. Pythia, long accustomed to Apollo’s vapor, was still struck by the scent rising from below, smelling of almond blossoms.

The god’s pneuma, his prophetic exhalation.

“It is time,” she said to the younger sister, who had followed her down. “Bring the child to me.”

Pythia crossed to the tripod and mounted the seat. Positioned over the crack in the floor, the rising vapors bathed her in Apollo’s breath. “Hurry.”

The younger sister gathered up the child and placed the girl into her lap. Pythia cradled her gently, like a mother with a babe, but the child did not respond to such affection.

Pythia already felt the effect of the pneuma rising from the earth below her. A familiar tingle ran along her limbs. Her throat burned warmly as Apollo entered her. Her vision began to close.

But the child was smaller, more susceptible to the pneuma.

The girl’s head rolled back; her eyelids drooped. Surely she would not survive Apollo’s penetration for long. Still, if there was to be any hope, the girl had to be put to the question.

“Child,” Pythia rang out, “tell us more of this boy and the doom he whispered to you. Where will he rise?”

The small lips moved in a whisper. “From me. From my dreams.”

Small fingers found Pythia’s hand and squeezed.

Words continued to spill from the girl’s lips. “Your house is empty…your springs have dried up. But a new spring of prophecy will flow.”

Pythia’s arms tightened on the girl. For too long, ruin had lingered over the temple. “A new spring.” Hope rang in her voice. “Here at Delphi?”

“No…”

Pythia’s breath grew more rapid. “Then from where will it spring?”

The girl’s lips moved, but no words came out.

She shook the girl. “Where?”

The girl lifted a boneless arm and placed a hand on her own belly.

With that touch, a vision swelled through Pythia, of silver waters gushing from the girl’s navel, from out of her womb. A new spring. But was it a vision from Apollo? Or was it born from her own hope?

A scream pierced her daze. Hard voices echoed down. From the stairs, a figure stumbled into view. It was one of the elders who had tended the fire. She clutched a hand to her shoulder. A crimson bloom spread from under her palm. The black head of an arrow protruded between her fingers.

“Too late,” the old woman cried out and collapsed to her knees. “The Romans…”

Pythia heard the woman’s words but remained lost in the vapors. Behind her eyes, she pictured the spring flowing from the girl, a new font of prophetic power. But Pythia also smelled the smoke from the Roman torches. Blood and smoke leaked into her vision. The silver spring now ran with a thin stream of black crimson and swept into the future.

The child suddenly sagged in her arms, completely lost to the pneuma’s vapors. Still, as Pythia studied the vision, she watched the dark stream form a black figure…the shadow of a boy. Flames rose behind him.

The child’s words from a moon ago echoed to her.

The brother of the Hebrew boy…he who would set fire to the world.

Pythia held the limp girl. The child’s prophecy hinted at both doom and salvation. Perhaps it would be best to leave her to the Imperial legion, to end such an uncertain future here. From overhead, hard voices echoed down. There was already no escape. Except in death.

Still, the vision swelled in her.

Apollo had sent the child. To Pythia.

A new spring will flow.

She took a deep breath, drawing Apollo fully into her.

What must I do?

The Roman centurion crossed the hall. He had his orders. To slay the girl who spoke of the empire’s doom. Last night, they had captured one of the temple’s servants, a maid. Under the lash—and before he gave her to his men—she let it be known that the child still remained at the temple.

“Bring the torches!” he yelled. “Search every corner!”

Movement near the back of the hall drew his eye—and his sword.

A woman appeared from the shadows of a lower stair. She stumbled forward, weaving two steps into view, unsteady, dazed. Dressed all in white, she bore a crown of laurel branches.

He knew who stood before him.

The Oracle of Delphi.

The centurion fought back a tremble of fear. Like many of the legion, he still secretly practiced the old ways. Even slaughtered bulls to Mithra and bathed in their blood.

Still, a new sun was on the rise.

There was no stopping it.

“Who dares violate Apollo’s temple?” she called out to them.

With the stony weight of his men’s eyes upon him, the centurion marched to face the woman. “Bring forth the girl!” he demanded.

“She is gone. Beyond even your reach.”

The centurion knew that was impossible. The temple was surrounded.

Still, worry pushed him forward.

The Oracle stepped to block him from the stairs. She held a palm against his breastplate. “The adytum below is forbidden to all men.”

“But not to the emperor. And I am under his edict.”

She refused to move. “You will not pass.”

The centurion had his orders under the seal of Emperor Theodosius, handed to him personally by the emperor’s son Arcadius. The old gods were to be silenced, their old temples torn down. All across the empire, including Delphi. The centurion had been given one additional command.

He would obey.

He thrust his sword deep into the Oracle’s belly and drove it full to the hilt. A gasp escaped her. She fell against his shoulder, as in a lover’s embrace. He shouldered her away from him roughly.

Blood splashed across his armor, across the floor.

The Oracle slumped to the marble, then to her side. A trembling arm reached to the pool of her own blood. Her palm settled into it. “A new spring…,” she whispered, as if it were a promise.

Then her body went slack with death.

The centurion stepped over her form and let his sword lead him down the stairs to a small blind cave. An old woman’s corpse, arrow-bit, lay in a black pool of blood. A three-legged chair lay toppled beside a riven crack in the floor. He searched the rest of the room and turned a full circle.

Impossible.

The chamber was empty.

March 1959
Carpathian Mountains
Romania

Major Yuri Raev climbed out of the Russian ZiS-151 truck and dropped to the rutted dirt road. His legs trembled under him. To steady himself, he leaned a hand on the green steel door of the battered vehicle, both cursing it and thanking it. The rattle of the week-long trek up into the mountains still made his spine ache. Even his molars seemed loose in his skull. Still, it took such a rugged vehicle to climb the stony switchbacks and river-flooded roads to reach this isolated winter camp.

He glanced over his shoulder as the rear door to the truck’s bed crashed down. Soldiers in black-and-white uniforms hopped out. Their winter garb blended with the snow and granite of the densely wooded highlands. Morning fog still hung in hollows like sullen ghosts.

The men swore and stamped their boots. Small flickers of fire sparked as cigarettes were dropped or ground out. With a clatter, the soldiers readied their Kalashnikov assault rifles. But they were only the rear guard, meant to keep all away.

Yuri faced forward as the second in command of this mission, Lieutenant Dobritsky, marched over. He was a blocky Ukrainian with a pocked face and broken nose, outfitted in winter camouflage. Red rings from his snow goggles still circled his eyes.

“Major, sir, the camp is secure.”

“Is it them? Who we seek?”

Dobritsky shrugged, leaving it for Yuri to decide. They’d already had one false alarm, raiding a winter camp of half-starved peasants, who’d been eking out a living by quarrying stone.

Yuri scowled. These mountains were from another era, Stone-Aged, backward, rife with superstition and poverty. Yet the craggy, forested highlands were also a perfect refuge for those who wished to remain hidden.

Yuri stepped to the side and studied the curve of the rutted track that served as a road. Mud and snow had been churned up by the lead vehicles. Through the trees, Yuri spotted a score of IMZ-Ural motorcycles, each bearing an armed soldier in a sidecar. The heavy bikes had swept up in advance and secured the site, cutting off all means of escape.

Rumor and tortured testimony had led to this remote place. And still it had required scouring the highlands and burning a few homesteads to warm the occasional frozen tongues. Few were willing to speak of the Carpathian Romani. Especially with the stories spoken about this isolated clan in particular, whispers of strigoi and moroi. Evil spirits and witches.

But had he found them at long last?

Lieutenant Dobritsky shifted his boots. “What now, Major?”

Yuri noted the sour turn to the Ukrainian’s lips. Though Yuri was a major in the Soviet army, he was no soldier. He stood a head shorter than Dobritsky, with a slight paunch to his belly and a doughy face. Recruited from Leningrad State University, he had risen to his position through the ranks of the military’s scientific branches. At the age of twenty-eight, he was already chief of the biophysics laboratory at the State Control Institute of Medical and Biological Research.

“Where is Captain Martov?” Yuri asked. The representative of Soviet Military Intelligence seldom left Dobritsky’s side and kept an officious eye on all matters.

“Waiting for us at the camp’s entrance.”

Dobritsky slogged a straight path up the road’s center. Yuri sidestepped to the edge, where the ground was still frozen and the walking easier. Reaching the last switchback, the lieutenant pointed toward a camp sheltered in a cover of steep crags and surrounded by black woods.

“Gypsies,” Dobritsky grunted. “As you ordered, da?”

But is this the right Romani clan?

Ahead, the Gypsy wagons were painted in faded hues of green and black, with wheels as tall as Yuri. Some paint had peeled and flaked to reveal bolder colors hidden beneath, peeks at happier times. The tall wooden wagons were piled with snow and fringed by icicles along the sides. Windows were etched with frost. Blackened pits marked old bonfires. Two fires were still lit deeper in the winter camp, casting flames as high as the tallest wagon. Another wagon stood shattered and burned to a husk.

To one side, a few swaybacked draft horses hung their heads dully from beneath a lean-to of salvaged wood planks and piled stones. Goats and a few sheep ambled through the camp.

The soldiers had the site surrounded. A few dead bodies in ragged clothes and furred jackets lay sprawled here and there. The living looked little better. The camp’s residents had been hauled from their wagons and heavy tents.

Shouts rose from deeper in the camp as the last of the Gypsies were rounded up. A spatter of automatic gunfire sounded. Kalashnikovs. Yuri observed the grim-eyed crowd. Some of the women were on their knees, sobbing. The dark men were steely in their black regard of the intruders. Most were bloody, wounded, broken-limbed.

“Where are all the children?” Yuri asked.

The answer came from his other side, bright and brittle as the ice frosting these highlands. “Barricaded in the church.”

Yuri turned to face the speaker, Captain Savina Martov, the mission’s intelligence officer. She was buried in a black overcoat with a fur-lined hood. Her black hair was a match to the hood’s fringe of Russian wolf.

She lifted a slender arm toward a steeple rising beyond the wagons and tents. It appeared to be the only permanent structure here. Built all of local stone, the church blended into the surrounding crags.

“The children were already assembled in the structure before our forces arrived,” Savina recounted.

Dobritsky nodded. “Must have heard the motorcycles’ engines.”

Savina met Yuri’s eyes. Morning light danced in her green eyes. The intelligence officer had her own thoughts. It had been Savina who had delivered a cache of research papers to Yuri’s institute, notebooks and reams of data from Auschwitz-Birkenau, specifically the work of Dr. Josef Mengele, the concentration camp’s “Angel of Death.”

Yuri had many sweat-soaked nightmares after reading through the material. It was well known that Dr. Mengele had performed all manner of horrible experiments on the prisoners, but the monster bore a special fascination for Gypsies, especially their children. He would ply them with treats and chocolates. They came to call him “Uncle Pepe.” This was all done just to get the children to better cooperate. Eventually he had them all slaughtered—but not before he discovered an especially unique pair of Gypsy twins.

Two identical girls. Sasha and Meena.

Yuri had read those notes with a mixture of fascination and horror.

Mengele had kept meticulous notes on the remarkable twins: age, family history, lineage. He tortured the twins’ family and relatives to uncover more details, verified by testing with the girls. Mengele accelerated his experiments. But as the war drew to a close, he was forced to prematurely terminate his tests. He killed the twins with injections of phenol into their hearts.

Mengele had scrawled his frustration near the end.

Wenn ich nur mehr Zeit gehabt hätte…

If only I’d had more time…

“Are you ready?” Savina asked Yuri.

He nodded.

Accompanied by Dobritsky and another soldier, the pair headed into the camp. He stepped around a corpse sprawled facedown in a pool of frozen blood.

The church appeared ahead. It was all stacked stones, no windows. A single door stood closed, constructed of hewn beams of stout wood, banded and studded in copper. The building looked more like a fortress than a church.

Two soldiers flanked the doors with a steel battering ram.

Dobritsky glanced to Yuri.

He nodded.

“Break it down!” the lieutenant ordered sharply.

The men swung the ram and smashed the door. Wood splintered. It held for two more swings. Finally the door burst open with a crack of thunder.

Yuri shadowed Savina and stepped forward.

Small oil lamps lit the dark interior. Rows of pews lined either side, leading to a raised altar. Children of all ages cowered among the benches, strangely silent.

As Yuri continued toward the altar, he studied the children. Many bore disturbing deformities: pinheaded microcephaly, cleft lips, dwarfism. One child had no arms at all, only a torso. Inbreeding. Yuri’s skin pebbled with unease. No wonder the rural folk around here feared this Romani clan, told tales of spirits and monsters.

“How will you know if these are the right children?” Savina asked with clear disgust in her voice.

Yuri quoted from one of the tortured interviews recorded by Mengele. “The lair of the chovihanis.” The place was where the twins had been born, a secret kept by the Gypsies going back to the founding of the clans.

“Are these the ones?” Savina pressed.

Yuri shook his head. “I don’t know.”

He continued toward a girl seated before the altar. She clutched a rag doll to her chest, though her own garb was little better than her doll’s. As Yuri neared, he noted the child seemed perfect, spared of any of the deformities. In the dim light, the pure crystal blue of her eyes shone brightly.

So rare among the Romani.

Like the twins, Sasha and Meena.

Yuri knelt in front of her. She seemed not to notice him. Her gaze passed straight through him. He sensed there was something wrong with this child, possibly worse than any of the other deformities.

Though her eyes never seemed to focus any sharper, she lifted a hand toward him. “Unchi Pepe,” she lisped in a thin Romani voice.

A wash of fear swept through Yuri. Uncle Pepe. The pet name for Josef Mengele. It had been used by all the Gypsy children. But these children were too young to have ever seen the insides of a concentration camp.

Yuri stared into those vacant eyes. Did the child know what Yuri and his research team intended? How could she? Mengele’s words haunted him:

If only I’d had more time…

That would not be Yuri’s problem. His team would be granted all the time it needed. The facility was already under construction. Far from prying eyes.

Savina stepped closer. She needed an answer.

Yuri knew the truth; he’d known it the moment he stared into this girl’s face. Still he hesitated.

Savina placed a hand on his elbow. “Major?”

There could be no turning back, so Yuri nodded, acknowledging the horror to come. “Da. These are the chovihanis.”

“Are you certain?”

Yuri nodded again, but he kept his gaze fixed on the child’s blue eyes. He barely heard Savina order Dobritsky: “Collect all the children into the trucks. Eliminate everyone else.”

Yuri did not countermand those orders. He knew why they were here.

The child still held out her hand. “Unchi Pepe,” she repeated.

He took the tiny fingers into his own. There was no denying it, no turning back.

Yes, I am.

FIRST

Chapter 1

Present Day
September 5, 1:38 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

It wasn’t every day a man dropped dead in your arms.

Commander Gray Pierce had been crossing the national Mall when the homeless man accosted him. Gray was already in a bad mood, having finished one fight and was headed toward another. The midday heat only stoked his irritability. The day steamed with the usual D.C. swelter, baking off the sidewalk. Dressed in a navy blue blazer over an untucked cotton jersey and jeans, he estimated his internal temperature had risen from medium to well done.

From half a block away, Gray spotted a gaunt figure weaving toward him. The homeless man was dressed in baggy jeans rolled at the ankle, revealing scuffed army boots, only half laced. He hunched within a rumpled suit jacket. As the man neared, Gray noted his scrabbled beard was shot with gray, his eyes bleary and red as he searched around.

Such panhandlers were not a rare sight around the national Mall, especially as the Labor Day celebrations had just ended this past weekend. The tourists had retreated back to their ordinary lives, the riot police had retired to the local bars, and the street cleaners had finished erasing the evidence. The last to leave were those who still sought some bit of loose change that might have fallen through the cracks, searching trash bins for bottles or cans, like crabs scavenging the last bit of meat from old bones.

Gray did not sidestep the vagrant as he headed down Jefferson Drive toward the Smithsonian Castle, his destination. He even made eye contact, both to judge any threat level and to acknowledge the man’s existence. While there were certainly some panhandling cons perpetrated by a few who were less than needy, most of the men and women on the streets were there through misfortune, addiction, or various forms of mental illness. And a good number of them were veterans of the armed services. Gray refused to look away—and maybe that was what brightened the other man’s eyes.

Gray read a mix of relief and hope through the grime and wrinkles. Upon spotting Gray, the homeless man’s shuffling gait became more determined. Perhaps he feared his quarry might escape into the Castle before he could reach him. The man’s limbs shook. He was plainly inebriated or possibly suffering from drunken tremors.

A hand reached toward him, palm up.

It was a universal gesture—from the slums of Brazil to the alleys of Bangkok.

Help me. Please.

Gray reached inside his blazer for his wallet. Many thought he was a sucker for succumbing to such panhandling. They’ll just use it to buy booze or crack. He didn’t care. It was not his place to judge. This was another human being in need. He pulled out his wallet. If asked, he would give. That was his motto. And maybe at a more honest level, such charity served Gray, too, a balm of human kindness to soothe a guilt buried deeper than he cared to face.

And all it cost was a buck or two.

Not a bad deal.

He glanced into his wallet. All twenties. He had just cashed up at an ATM at the Metro station. He shrugged and tugged out a bill with Andrew Jackson’s face.

Okay, sometimes it cost more than a buck or two.

He lifted his head just as the two met. Gray reached out with the twenty-dollar bill but found the man’s hand wasn’t empty. Resting in the middle of his palm lay a tarnished coin, about the size of a fifty-cent piece.

Gray frowned.

It was the first time a homeless man had tried to pay him.

Before he could comprehend the situation, the man tripped toward him, as if suddenly shoved from behind. His mouth opened in an O of surprise. He fell into Gray, who reflexively caught the elderly man.

He was lighter than Gray had expected. Under his jacket, the man’s body seemed all bone, a skeleton in a suit. A hand grazed Gray’s cheek. It burned feverishly hot. A flicker of fear—of disease, of AIDS—passed through Gray, but he did not let go as the man slumped in his arms.

Carrying the man’s weight, Gray shifted his left arm. His hand settled upon a hot welling wetness on the man’s lower back. It streamed over his fingers.

Blood.

Gray pivoted on instinct. He hip-rolled to the side and dove off the sidewalk, with the man still clutched in his arms. The thick grass cushioned their fall.

Gray didn’t hear the next shots—but two ricocheting flashes sparked off the concrete sidewalk where he’d been standing. Without stopping, he continued to roll until he reached a metal-and-concrete sign planted in the lawn of the Smithsonian Castle. It stood only waist high. He huddled behind it with the old man. The sign read: SMITHSONIAN INFORMATION CENTER IN THE CASTLE.

Gray certainly needed information.

Like who was shooting at him.

The solid sign stood between him and the Mall. It offered temporary shelter. Only ten yards away, the arched doors of a side entrance of the Smithsonian Castle beckoned. The building itself rose in turrets and towers of red sandstone, all quarried from Seneca Creek, Maryland, a true Norman castle, a literal fortress. The protection it offered lay only a few steps away, but to cross that open distance would leave them exposed to the sniper.

Instead, Gray yanked a pistol—a compact Sig Sauer P229—from the holster at his back. Not that he had a target. Still, he readied his weapon in case there was any direct assault.

At Gray’s side, the homeless man groaned. Blood soaked his entire back. Gray frowned at the man’s continuing misfortune in life. The poor sack had come seeking a bit of charity and got a bullet in the back instead, collateral damage in an assassination attempt against Gray.

But who was trying to kill him? And why?

The homeless man lifted a palsied arm, failing with each ragged breath. From the entry point and amount of blood, the shot had struck a kidney, a fatal wound for one so debilitated. The man reached to Gray’s thigh. His fingers opened to drop the tarnished coin he had been holding. He had somehow kept his grip on it. The coin bounced off Gray’s leg and rolled to the grass.

A final gift.

A bit of charity returned.

With the deed done, the homeless man’s limbs went slack. His head fell to Gray’s shoulder. Gray swore under his breath.

Sorry, old man.

His other hand freed his cell phone. Thumbing it open, he hit an emergency speed-dial button. It was answered immediately.

Gray spoke rapidly, calling a mayday into central command.

“Help’s on the way,” his director announced. “We have you on camera outside the Castle. Seeing lots of blood. Are you injured?”

“No,” he answered curtly.

“Stay put.”

Gray didn’t argue. So far no further shots had been fired. No ringing impacts against the sheltering sign. There was a good chance the shooter had already fled. Still, Gray dared not move—not until the cavalry arrived.

Pocketing his cell phone, Gray retrieved the man’s coin from the grass. It was heavy, thick, crudely minted. He lifted it and absently rubbed at its surface. Using the dead man’s blood on his fingers, he polished the grime off the surface to reveal an image of what appeared to be a Greek or Roman temple, six pillars under a peaked roof.

What the hell?

In the coin’s center stood a single letter.

Gray thought it was the Greek letter Σ.

Sigma.

In mathematics, the letter sigma represented the sum of all parts, but it was also the emblem for the organization Gray worked for: Sigma, an elite team of ex–Special Forces soldiers who had been retrained in scientific fields to serve as a covert military arm for DARPA, the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Gray glanced to the Castle. Sigma’s headquarters were here, buried beneath the foundations of the Smithsonian Castle in former World War II bunkers. It was perfectly situated to take advantage of the proximity to the halls of government, the Pentagon, and the various private and national laboratories.

Focusing back on the coin, Gray suddenly realized his mistake. The letter was not a Greek Σ—but merely a large capital E. In his panic, his eyes had played tricks, seeing what had been forefront in his mind.

He closed his fist over the coin.

Just an E.

It wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks that Gray had assumed connections that weren’t there—or at least that was the consensus among his colleagues. For a solid month, Gray had been searching for some confirmation that a lost friend, Monk Kokkalis, could still be alive. But so far, even utilizing the full resources of Sigma, he had reached only dead ends.

Chasing ghosts, Painter Crowe had warned after the first weeks.

Maybe he was.

Across the way, doors crashed open in the front of the Castle. A dozen black-suited figures fled outward with weapons raised, clutched near shoulders in double grips.

The cavalry.

They moved cautiously, but no one fired shots at them.

They reached Gray’s side quickly and flanked around protectively.

One of the men fell to a knee beside the homeless man. He dropped a paramedic’s pack, ready to offer aid.

“I think he’s gone,” Gray warned.

The medic checked for a pulse, confirming Gray’s assessment.

Dead.

Gray climbed to his feet.

He was surprised to see his boss, Painter Crowe, at the side entrance. Jacketless, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, Director Crowe shoved through the door. His expression was stormy. Though ten years older than Gray, Painter still moved like a lean-muscled wolf. The director must have assessed the risk to be minimal. Or maybe, like Gray, he merely sensed that the sniper had already fled.

Still, what didn’t the man understand about desk job?

Painter crossed to him as sirens sounded from the distance. “I have local P.D. locking down the Mall,” he said in clipped tones.

“Too little, too late.”

“Most likely. Still, ballistics will narrow down a trajectory radius. Figure out from where the shots were fired. Was anyone following you?”

Gray shook his head. “Not that I could assess.”

Gray read the calculations in the director’s eyes as he surveyed the Mall. Who would attempt to assassinate Gray? On their own doorstep. It was a clear warning, but against what? Gray had not been active in any operation since the last mission in Cambodia.

“We already pulled your parents into security,” Painter said. “Just as a precaution.”

Gray nodded, grateful for that. Though he could imagine his father was not too happy. Nor his mother. They had barely recovered from a brutal kidnapping two months ago.

Still, with the immediate threat waning, Gray turned his attention to who might have tried to kill him—and more important, why. One possibility rose to the forefront: his current line of inquiry. Had his investigation into his friend’s fate struck a nerve somewhere?

Despite the death here, hope flared in Gray.

“Director, could the assassination—?”

Painter held up a hand as his brows pinched with worry. He sank to one knee beside the homeless man and gently turned his face. After a moment, he sat back on his heel, his eyes narrowed. He looked more worried.

“What is it, sir?”

“I don’t think you were the target, Gray.”

Gray glanced to the sidewalk and remembered the sparking strikes at his heels.

“At least not the primary target,” the director continued. “The sniper may have tried to eliminate you as a witness.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Painter nodded to the dead body. “I know this man.”

Shock rang through him.

“His name is Archibald Polk. Professor of neurology at M.I.T.”

Gray cast a skeptical eye upon the man’s jaundiced pallor, the grime, the scrabbled beard, but the director sounded certain. If true, the fellow plainly had fallen on hard times.

“How the hell did he end up like this?” he asked.

Painter stood and shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ve been out of touch for a decade. But the more important question: Why would someone want him dead?”

Gray stared down at the body. He readjusted his own internal assessment. Gray should have been relieved to learn he wasn’t a target of an assassin, but if Painter was correct, then Gray’s investigation had nothing to do with the attack.

Anger surfaced again—along with a certain sense of responsibility.

The man had died in Gray’s arms.

“He must have been coming here,” Painter mumbled and glanced to the Castle. “To see me. But why?”

Gray held out his hand, remembering the man’s urgency. The ancient coin rested on his bloody palm. “He may have wanted you to have this.”

2:02 P.M.

As sirens sounded in the distance, the elderly man walked slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue. He was dressed in a dusty gray suit. He carried a beat-up traveling valise on one side and held the hand of a girl on the other. The nine-year-old child wore a dress that matched the older man’s suit. Her dark hair was tied back from her pale face with a red ribbon. The polish on her black shoes was marred by a drying splash of mud from the playground where she’d been playing before being picked up a moment ago.

“Papa, did you find your friend?” she asked in Russian.

He squeezed her hand and answered in a tired voice. “Yes, I did, Sasha. But remember, English, my dear.”

She shuffled her feet a bit at the reprimand, then continued. “Was he happy to see you?”

He flashed back to the sight through the sniper rifle’s scope, the fall of the body.

“Yes, he was. He was quite surprised.”

“Can we go home now? Marta misses me.”

“Soon.”

“How soon?” she asked petulantly and scratched at her ear. A glint of steel flashed through her dark hair where she itched.

He released her hand and gently pulled her arm down from her ear. He smoothed her hair with a pat. “I have one more stop. Then we’ll head home.”

He neared Tenth Street. The building rose on his right, an ugly box built of slabs of concrete that someone attempted to decorate with a row of flags. He turned toward its entrance.

His destination.

The headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

3:46 P.M.

A rattling buzzed from inside Gray’s locker.

He hurried forward, half slipping on the wet floor. Fresh from the shower, he wore only a towel around his waist. After debriefing Director Crowe on the details of the shooting, he had retreated to the locker room in the lowest levels of Sigma’s bunkers. He had already taken one shower, followed by a rigorous hour in the gym working free weights—then showered again. The exertion had helped settle his mind.

But not completely.

Not until he had some answers about the murder.

Reaching his locker, he tugged the door open and caught his BlackBerry as it rattled across the bottom of the metal locker. It had to be Director Crowe. As his fingers closed on it, the vibration ceased. He’d missed the call. He checked the log and frowned. It was not Painter Crowe.

The screen read: R. Trypol.

He had almost forgotten.

Captain Ron Trypol of Naval Intelligence.

The captain had been overseeing the salvage operations at the Indonesian island of Pusat. He had a report due today on his assessment of raising the sunken cruise ship, the Mistress of the Seas. He had two navy submersibles on site, searching the wreckage and surrounding area.

But Gray had a more personal interest in the search.

The island of Pusat was where his friend and partner, Monk Kokkalis, had last been seen, spotted as he was dragged under the sea by a weighted net, tangled and caught. Captain Trypol had agreed to look for Monk’s body. The captain was a good friend and former colleague of Monk’s widow, Kat Bryant. This morning, Gray had gone over to the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland, hoping to hear any word. He had been rebuffed, told to wait until after the full debriefing. It was why he had been storming back here, prepared to demand that the director pressure the navy.

Flushed with a twinge of guilt for having set aside his cause, Gray hit the callback button and lifted the phone to his ear. As he waited for the connection to NMIC, he sank to a bench and stared at the locker on the opposite side. Written in black marker across a strip of duct tape was the name of the locker’s former owner.

KOKKALIS.

Though Monk was surely dead, no one wanted to remove the tape. It was a silent hope. If only sustained by Gray.

He owed his friend.

Monk had climbed through the ranks of Sigma alongside Gray. His friend had been recruited from the Green Berets at the same time as Gray had been pulled from Leavenworth prison, where he’d been incarcerated after striking a superior officer during his stint with the Army Rangers. They had become quick friends, if not a bit of an odd couple at Sigma. Monk stood only a few inches over five feet, a shaven-headed pit bull compared to Gray’s taller, leaner physique. But the true difference lay deeper than mere appearance. Monk’s easygoing manner had slowly tempered the uncompromising steel of Gray’s heart. If not for Monk’s friendship, Gray would have certainly washed out of Sigma, as he had the Army Rangers.

As he waited, Gray pictured his former partner. They’d been through countless scrapes together over the years. Monk bore the puckered bullet wounds and scars to prove it. He had even lost his left hand during one mission, replaced with a prosthetic one. As he sat, Gray could still hear the barking bellow of Monk’s laugh…or the quiet intensity of his voice, revealing the man’s genius-level I.Q., disciplined in forensic medicine and science.

How could someone so large and vital be gone? Without a trace?

The phone finally clicked in his ear. “Captain Ron Trypol,” a stern voice answered.

“Captain, it’s Gray Pierce.”

“Ah, Commander. Good. I had hoped to reach you this afternoon. I don’t have much time before my next meeting.”

Gray already heard the dire overtones. “Captain?”

“I’ll get to the point. I’ve been ordered to call off the search.”

“What?”

“We were able to recover twenty-two bodies. Dental records show none of them to be your man.”

“Only twenty-two?” Even by conservative estimates, that was only a small fraction of the dead.

“I know, Commander. But recovery efforts were already hampered by the extreme depths and pressures. The entire bottom of the lagoon is riddled with caverns and lava tubes, many extending miles in tangled mazes.”

“Still, with—”

“Commander.” The man’s tone was firm. “We lost a diver two days ago. A good man with a family and two children.”

Gray closed his eyes, knowing the ache of that loss.

“To search the caves only risks more men. And for what?”

Gray remained silent.

“Commander Pierce, I assume you haven’t heard any more word. No further cryptic messages?”

Gray sighed.

To gain the captain’s cooperation, he had related the one message he had received…or possibly received. It had occurred weeks after Monk had vanished. Following the events that occurred at the island, the only piece of his friend to be salvaged had been his prosthetic hand, a state-of-the-art piece of biotechnology built by DARPA engineers, which included a built-in wireless radio interface. While transporting the disembodied hand to Monk’s funeral, the prosthetic fingers had begun to tap out a weak S.O.S. It had lasted only a few seconds—and only Gray had heard it. Then it had gone silent. Technicians had examined the hand and concluded it was most likely a mere glitch. The hand’s digital log showed no incoming signal. It was just a malfunction. Nothing more. An electrical ghost-in-the-machine.

Still, Gray had refused to give up—even as week after week passed.

“Commander?” Trypol said.

“No,” Gray admitted sullenly. “There’s been no further word.”

Trypol paused, then spoke more slowly. “Then perhaps it’s time to lay this to rest, Commander. For everyone’s sake.” His voice softened at the edges. “And what about Kat? Your man’s wife. What does she have to say about all this?”

It was a sore point. Gray wished he’d never mentioned it to her. But how could he not? Monk was her husband; they had a little girl together, Penelope. Still, maybe it had been the wrong thing to do. Kat had listened to Gray’s story with a stoic expression. She stood in her black funeral dress, ramrod straight, her eyes sunken with grief. She knew it was a thin lifeline, only a frail hope. She had glanced to Penelope in the car seat of the black limousine, then back to Gray. She didn’t say a word, only shook her head once. She could not grasp that lifeline. She could not survive losing Monk a second time. It would destroy her when she was already this fragile. And she had Penelope to consider, her own piece of Monk. True flesh and blood. Not some phantom hope.

He had understood. So he had continued his investigation on his own. He had not spoken to Kat since that day. It was a silent, mutual pact between them. She did not want to hear from him until the matter was resolved one way or the other. Gray’s mother, though, spent several afternoons with Kat and the baby. His mother knew nothing about the S.O.S., but she had sensed that something was wrong with Kat.

Haunted, that was how his mother had described Kat.

And Gray knew what haunted her.

Despite what Kat had decided that day, she had grasped that lifeline. What the mind attempted to set aside, the heart could not. And it was torturing her.

For her sake, for Monk’s family, Gray needed to face a harsh reality.

“Thank you for your efforts, Captain,” Gray finally mumbled.

“You did right by him, Commander. Know that. But eventually we have to move on.”

Gray cleared his throat. “My condolences for the loss of your man, sir.”

“And the same to you.”

Gray ended the connection. He stood for a long breath. Finally, he stepped over to the opposite locker, placed a palm on its cold metal surface, as cold as a grave.

I’m sorry.

He reached up, peeled a corner of the duct tape, and ripped it away.

Gray was done chasing ghosts.

Good-bye, Monk.

4:02 P.M.

Painter spun the ancient coin atop his desk. He watched the silver flash as he concentrated on the mystery it represented. It had been returned from the lab half an hour ago. He had read the detailed report that had accompanied it. The coin had been laser-mapped for fingerprints, both its metallic content and surface soot had been analyzed with a mass spectrometer, and a multitude of photographs had been taken, including some taken with a stereo-microscope. The coin’s spinning slowed, and it toppled to the mahogany desktop. Carefully cleaned, the ancient image on the surface shone brightly.

A Greek temple supported by six Doric pillars.

In the center of the temple rested a large letter.

E

The Greek letter epsilon.

On the opposite side was the bust of a woman with the words DIVA FAUSTINA written below it. From the report, at least the origin of the coin was no longer a mystery.

But what did—?

His intercom chimed. “Director Crowe, Commander Pierce has arrived.”

“Very good. Send him in, Brant.”

Painter pulled the research report closer to him as the door swung open. Gray stepped through, his black hair wet and combed. He had changed out of his bloody clothes and wore a green T-shirt with ARMY emblazoned on the front, along with black jeans and boots. As he entered, Painter noted a shadow over the man’s features, but also a certain weary resolve in his gray-blue eyes. Painter could guess the reason. He had already heard from the Office of Naval Intelligence through his own channels.

Painter waved Gray to a seat.

As he sat, the man’s attention noted the coin on his desk. A flicker of curiosity flared.

Good.

Painter shifted the coin toward Gray. “Commander, I know you asked for an indeterminate leave of absence, but I’d like you to take the lead on this case.”

Gray made no move to take the coin. “May I ask a question first, sir?”

Painter nodded.

“The dead man. The professor.”

“Archibald Polk.”

“You mentioned that he must have been on his way here. To see you.”

Painter nodded. He suspected where the line of questioning was leading.

“So Professor Polk was familiar with Sigma? Despite the top secret clearance for such knowledge, he knew about our organization?”

“Yes. In a manner of speaking.”

Gray’s brow crinkled. “What manner is that?”

“Archibald Polk invented Sigma.”

Painter took a small measure of satisfaction in the man’s surprise. Gray needed a little shaking up. The man sat up straighter in his chair.

Painter held up a hand. “I’ve answered your question, Gray. So now you answer mine. Will you take the lead on this case?”

“After the professor was shot in front of me, I want answers as much as anyone.”

“And what about your…extracurricular activities?”

A wince of pain narrowed Gray’s eyes. The planes of his face seemed to grow harder as a part of him clenched internally. “I assume you’ve heard, sir.”

“Yes. The navy has discontinued its search.”

Gray took a deep breath. “I’ve pursued all angles. There’s nothing more I can do. I admit that.”

“And do you think Monk is still alive?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“And you can live with that?”

Gray met his gaze, unflinching. “I’ll have to.”

Painter nodded, satisfied. “Then let’s talk about this coin.”

Gray reached out and took the coin from the desktop. Turning it in his fingers, he examined its freshly cleaned surfaces. “Were you able to determine much about it?”

“Quite a bit. It’s a Roman coin minted during the second century. Take a look at the woman’s portrait on the back. That’s Faustina the Elder, wife of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius. She was a patron of orphaned girls and sponsored many women’s charities. She also had a fascination with a sisterhood of sibyls, prophetic women from a temple in Greece.”

Painter waved for Gray to turn the coin over. “That’s the temple on the other side. The temple of Delphi.”

“As in the Oracle of Delphi? The female prophets?”

“The same.”

The coin’s report on Painter’s desk included a historical sheet about the Oracle, detailing how these women would inhale hallucinogenic fumes and answer questions of the future from supplicants. But their prophecies were more than just fortune-telling, for these women had a great impact on the ancient world. Over the course of a millennium, the Oracle’s prophecies played a role in freeing thousands of slaves, setting the seeds of Western democracy, and elevating the sanctity of human life. Some claimed their words were pivotal at lifting Greece out from barbarism and toward modern civilization.

“But what about the big E in the center of the temple?” Gray asked. “I assume the letter is Greek, too. Epsilon.”

“Yes. That’s also from the Oracle’s temple. There were a couple cryptic inscriptions in the temple: Gnothi seauton, which translates—”

“Know thyself,” Gray answered.

Painter nodded. He had to remind himself that Gray was well versed in ancient philosophies. When Painter had first recruited him out of Leavenworth prison, Gray had been studying both advanced chemistry and Taoism. It was this very uniqueness of his mind that had intrigued Painter from the start. But such distinctiveness came with a price. Gray did not always play well with others, as he had demonstrated amply these past weeks. It was good to see him focusing on the here and now again.

“Then there was that mysterious E,” Painter continued, nodding to the coin. “It lay carved in the temple’s inner sanctum.”

“But what does it mean?”

Painter shrugged. “No one knows. Not even the Greeks. Historians going all the way back to the ancient Greek scholar Plutarch have speculated at its significance. The current thought among modern historians is that there used to be two letters. A G and an E, representing the Earth goddess, Gaia. The earliest temple at Delphi was built to worship Gaia.”

“Still, if the meaning is so mysterious, why depict it on the coin?”

Painter slid the report across his desk toward Gray. “You can read more about it in here. Over time, the Oracle’s E became a symbol for a cult of prophecy. It’s depicted in paintings throughout the ages, including Nicolas Poussin’s Ordination, where it’s inscribed above Christ’s head as he hands the keys of heaven to Peter. The symbol is supposed to mark a time of great and fundamental change in the world, usually brought about by a single individual, whether that be the Oracle of Delphi or Jesus of Nazareth.”

Gray left the papers on the desk and shook his head. “But what does all this have to do with the dead man?” Gray lifted the silver coin. “Was this valuable? Worth killing over?”

Painter shook his head. “Not especially. It’s of moderate value, but nothing spectacular.”

“Then what—?”

The intercom’s buzz cut him off. “Director Crowe, I’m sorry to interrupt,” his assistant said over the speaker.

“What is it, Brant?”

“I have an urgent call from Dr. Jennings down in the pathology lab. He’s asking for an immediate teleconference.”

“Fine. Queue it up on monitor one.”

Gray stood, ready to leave, but Painter waved him down, then swung his chair around. His office, buried in the subterranean bunker, had no windows, but it did have three large wall-mounted plasma screens. His private windows on the world. They were presently dark, but the monitor on the left flickered to life.

Painter found himself staring into one of the pathology labs. In the foreground stood Dr. Malcolm Jennings. The sixty-year-old chief of R&D for Sigma was dressed in surgical scrubs and had a clear plastic face-shield tilted atop his head. Behind him spread one of the pathology suites: sealed concrete floor, rows of digital scales, and in the center a body rested on the table, respectfully covered with a sheet.

Professor Archibald Polk.

It had taken a few calls to get his body released to Sigma versus the city’s morgue, but Malcolm Jennings was a well-regarded forensic pathologist.

But from the grim set to the man’s lips, something was wrong.

“What is it, Malcolm?”

“I had to quarantine the laboratory.”

Painter didn’t like the sound of that. “A contagious concern?”

“No, but there is definitely a concern. Let me show you.” He stepped out of view of the camera, but his voice carried to them. “From the preliminary physical exam, I was already suspicious. I discovered patches of hair loss, eroded teeth enamel, and burns on his skin. If the man hadn’t been shot, I wager he would’ve been dead in a matter of days.”

“What are you saying, Malcolm?” Painter asked.

He must not have heard. The pathologist stepped back into view, but now he wore a heavier, weighted apron. He carried a device that trailed a black wand.

Gray stood and shifted closer to the monitor.

Dr. Jennings waved the black wand over the dead man. The device in his other hand erupted with a furious clicking. The pathologist turned to face the camera.

“This body is radioactive.”

Chapter 2

September 5, 5:25 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Out in the steaming swelter again, Gray strode down the sidewalk in front of the Smithsonian Castle. The national Mall spread to the left, mostly deserted due to the heat.

Behind Gray, crime tape still marked off the site of the afternoon’s murder. The forensics unit had finished its sweep, but the area was still locked down, under the eye of a posted D.C. policeman.

Gray walked east along Jefferson Drive. He was shadowed by a large bodyguard, whom he was doing his best to ignore. He had not asked for any protection, especially this man. He touched the mike at his throat and subvocalized into it. “I’ve found a trail.”

The fizzle of a reply rasped out of his wireless earpiece. Cocking his head, Gray seated it better. “Say again,” he whispered.

“Can you follow the trail?” Painter Crowe asked.

“Yes…but I don’t know for how long. The readings are weak.” Gray had suggested his current plan of action. He studied the device in his hand, a Gamma-Scout portable radiation detector. Its halogen-filled Geiger-Müller tube was sensitive enough to pick up trace radiation, especially when attuned to the specific strontium 90 isotope detected in Polk’s body. Gray had hoped that a residual trace signature might have been left behind, the radiological equivalent of a scent trail. And it seemed to be working.

“Do your best, Gray. Any information on the professor’s whereabouts these past days could be crucial. I already have a call in to his daughter, but I’ve been unable to reach her.”

“I’ll follow this as far as I can.” Gray continued down the sidewalk, monitoring the detector. “I’ll report in if I discover anything.”

Gray signed off and continued alongside the national Mall. After another half block, the signal suddenly died on his device. Swearing, he stopped, retreated, and bumped into the bodyguard shadowing him.

“Damn it, Pierce,” the man grumbled. “I just polished these shoes.”

Gray glanced over a shoulder to the muscled mountain behind him. Joe Kowalski, a former seaman with the navy, was dressed in a sportcoat and slacks. Both fit him poorly. With hair razored to a black stubble and a nose knotted by an old break, he looked more like a shaved gorilla forced into a wrinkled suit.

Kowalski bent down and used the cuff of his sportcoat to polish up his shoe. “I paid three hundred bucks for these. They’re chain stitch Chukkas imported from England. I had to special order them in my size.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Gray glanced up from his Gamma-Scout reader.

Kowalski seemed to realize he might have said too much. His expression turned sheepish. “Okay. I like shoes. So what? I had a date, but…well…she canceled.”

Smart lady.

“Sorry about that,” Gray offered aloud.

“Well…at least they’re not scratched,” Kowalski said.

“I meant sorry about being stood up.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He shrugged. “Her loss.”

Gray didn’t bother arguing. He returned his attention to his handheld reader and turned in a slow circle. A step to the right, he caught the radioactive scent again. It angled away from the sidewalk and trailed across the grassy Mall. “This way.”

The professor’s route took them through the Mall’s Sculpture Garden across from the Hirshhorn Museum. Gray followed Polk’s steps into the shady, sunken oasis, and out again. Beyond the garden, Polk’s path continued across the Mall, edging alongside the tents of a Labor Day media event that was still being dismantled.

Gray glanced back to the sunken garden, studying the professor’s path. “He was trying to keep out of sight.”

“Or maybe the guy was just hot,” Kowalski countered, wiping his sweaty brow.

Gray searched around. To the west, the Washington Monument pointed toward the blistering sun; to the east rose the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Needing answers, Gray continued. The digital readout on the Gamma-Scout slowly faded as he crossed the Mall. With each step, he watched the millirems of radiation ticking downward.

Reaching the far side of the Mall, Gray hurried across Madison Drive. He picked up the trail again as it entered another park. The signal grew stronger as Gray neared a shadowy copse of red-twig dogwood and Natchez crape myrtles. A bench stood next to a knee-high bed of hydrangeas.

Gray stepped to the bench.

In the secluded spot, the millirems ticked up higher again.

Had Polk waited here? Was that why the residual radiation trace was stronger?

Gray shifted a flowering branch of a crape myrtle and found a wide view of the Mall stretching ahead, including a straight-on view of the Smithsonian Castle. Had the professor waited here until he thought it was safe? Gray squinted against the glare of the sun. He remembered Malcolm’s diagnosis, the debilitation, the wasting. Polk had been on his last legs. Desperation must have finally drawn him out.

Why?

Gray began to step away when Kowalski cleared his throat. He was on one knee, dusting a shoe, but his other arm reached under the bench. “Look at this,” he said and stood. Turning, he held a tiny pair of binoculars.

Gray shifted the detector closer to the scopes. The readings spiked higher. “They’re hot.”

Kowalski grimaced and thrust out the binoculars by their neck strap. “Take ’em, take ’em.”

Gray retrieved the binoculars. His partner’s fears were baseless. While there was radiation, it was only moderately worse than the usual background radiation.

Turning, Gray lifted the binoculars and peered through them toward the Castle. The view of the building swelled. He watched a figure pass along the front. Through the scopes, he made out the pedestrian’s features. Gray recalled Polk’s urgency when they’d neared each other. He’d dismissed it as a panhandler’s desperation for a bit of charity. He now suspected Polk had recognized him. Maybe it wasn’t solely desperation that had drawn him out. Had he spotted Gray crossing the Mall and come out of hiding to intercept him?

Gray dropped the binoculars into the lead-lined bag hung at his waist.

“Let’s go.”

Out of the copse of trees, Gray followed the trail west along Madison Drive to a set of steps.

The trail turned up them.

Gray lifted his head and found himself facing the Mall entrance to one of the Smithsonian’s most famous museums: the National Museum of Natural History. It housed a massive collection of artifacts from around the world—ecological, geological, and archaeological—ranging from tiny fossils to a full-scale T-rex.

Gray craned his neck. The museum’s dome loomed above a triangular portico supported by six giant Corinthian pillars. Staring upward, he was suddenly struck by how much the museum’s facade looked like the Greek temple on the professor’s coin.

Could there be a connection?

Before he followed the trail inside, he knew he’d better report in with central command. Stepping off to the side, he leaned on the stone balustrade and switched on his encrypted radio. He reached Director Crowe immediately.

“Have you found something?” Painter asked.

Gray kept his voice to a faint whisper. “Looks like the professor’s trail leads inside the Smithsonian’s natural history museum.”

“The museum…?”

“I’ll continue the search inside. But was there any connection between him and this place?”

“Not that I’m aware. But I’ll check into past associates.”

Gray remembered an earlier snippet of conversation about Dr. Polk’s past. “Director Crowe, one other thing. You never did explain something.”

“What’s that, Commander?”

“You said the professor invented Sigma Force. What did you mean by that?”

Silence stretched for a bit, then Painter continued. “Gray, what do you know about an organization called the Jasons?”

Taken aback by the odd question, Gray could not even fathom the context. “Sir?”

“The Jasons are a scientific think tank formed back during the Cold War. They included leaders in their respective fields, many Nobel Prize winners. They banded together to offer advice to the military elite about technological projects.”

“And Professor Polk was a member?”

“He was. Over the years, the Jasons proved to be of great value to the military. They met each summer and brainstormed on new innovations. And to answer your question, it was during one such meeting that Archibald Polk suggested the formation of a militarized team of investigators to serve DARPA, to act as field operatives for the agency.”

“And so Sigma was born.”

“Exactly. But I’m not sure any of this is significant in regard to his murder. From what I’ve heard so far, Polk’s not been active with the Jasons for years.”

Gray stared up at the towering Greek facade. “Maybe one of his fellow Jasons worked here at the museum? Maybe that’s why he came?”

“That’s a good point of investigation. I’ll look into it, but it might take some time to root out. Over these past few years, their organization has become more and more secretive. Divided among various top secret projects, Jasons don’t even know what other Jasons are doing nowadays. But I’ll keep making calls.”

“And I’ll keep following this trail.” He signed off and waved to Kowalski. “C’mon. We’re going inside.”

“About time we got out of the goddamn sun.”

Gray didn’t argue. Stepping through the doors, he appreciated the shadowy, air-conditioned interior. The museum was free to the public, but Gray flashed his glossy black I.D. card to the guard who manned the metal detector.

He was waved through.

Pushing into the main rotunda, Gray was struck by the sheer size of the space. The rotunda was octagonal in shape and rose three stories, each level lined by more pillars, leading to the massive Guastavino-tiled dome. Sunlight streamed through clerestory windows and a central oculus.

Closer at hand, in the center of the rotunda, stood one of the museum’s mascots, an eight-ton African bull elephant. It posed with raised trunk and curved tusks amid a field of dry grass. Polk’s path led around the elephant and toward a public staircase.

As Gray followed, he noted a banner hung high on the wall to the left. It advertised an exhibit opening next month. It depicted the head of Medusa, her hair wild with twisting snakes, reflected on a circular shield. Staring upward, Gray’s feet slowed.

He pictured Polk’s strange coin as he read the name of the upcoming exhibit, sensing he was on the right track.

LOST MYSTERIES OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY

6:32 P.M.

In the darkened room, the two men stared through the one-way glass into a child’s playroom. They sat in leather club chairs, while behind them climbed four rows of stadium seating, all empty at the moment.

This was a private meeting.

Beyond the mirrored glass, the neighboring room was brightly lit. The walls were painted white, with just the barest hint of sky blue, a color that from psychological statistics was supposed to encourage a calming, meditative state. It held a daybed with a flowered comforter, an open box of toys, and a child-size desk.

The older of the two men sat straight in his seat. At his side was a scuffed valise that held a disassembled Dragunov sniper rifle.

The other man, at fifty-seven years of age, was twenty years younger than his Russian companion. He slouched in a pressed suit. His eyes were fixed on the girl as she stood in front of a plastic easel and shuffled through a tray of pastel felt markers. She had spent the last half hour meticulously drawing a rectangle in green upon the white sheet of butcher paper attached to the easel. She had run the marker around and around in a hypnotically rhythmic pattern.

“Dr. Raev,” the man said, “I don’t mean to harp, but are you absolutely certain Dr. Polk did not have it on his person?”

Dr. Yuri Raev sighed. “I have spent my life on this project.” And my soul, he added silently. “I will not have it ruined when we are so close.”

“So then where is it? We turned over that cheap motel he stayed in last night. Nothing. It would raise too many questions if it should end up in unfriendly hands.”

Yuri glanced at the man in the neighboring seat. John Mapplethorpe, a division chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency, had a long face with sagging jowls and bags under his eyes, as if he were made of candle wax and been left too long in the sun. Even the dye he used on his hair was too dark, too obvious a vanity for his age. Not that Yuri had any right to fault a man for attempting to stem the tide of age. Beneath the sag of his own skin, Yuri’s body remained toned, his reflexes sharp, and his mind as quick and agile as it ever had been. Between injections of androgens and growth hormone, along with vigorous exercise, he fought as adamantly as anyone to hold back time. But it was not vanity that drove him.

He stared into the room.

No, not vanity.

Mapplethorpe drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “We must recover what Polk stole.”

“He did not have it with him,” Yuri assured Mapplethorpe more forcefully. “It is too large to conceal on his person, even under a jacket. I was fortunate to stop him when I did. Before he spoke to anyone.”

“I hope you’re right. For all our sakes.” Mapplethorpe turned his attention back to the room. “And she was able to track him? All the way from Russia.”

Yuri nodded. Fatherly pride entered his voice. “With her and her twin brother, we may have finally breached the barrier.”

“Too bad she couldn’t have been quicker.” Mapplethorpe made a dismissive sound. “My brother-in-law’s daughter has an autistic boy. Did I ever tell you that? But he’s not an idiot savant. He can hardly tie his shoes.”

Yuri bristled. “The preferable term is autistic savant.”

The other man shrugged.

Yuri’s distaste for the American continued to grow. Like Mapplethorpe, few people really understood autism, even in the medical profession. Yuri knew the disorder intimately. It was in fact a spectrum of disorders, characterized by weaknesses in communication skills and social interaction, along with abnormal responses to sensations. This led tragically to children with delayed and compromised language and speech abilities, repetitive motor mannerisms and tics, preoccupation with objects, and often dysfunctional ways of relating to events or people.

But sometimes such a disorder generated miracles.

In rare instances, an autistic child demonstrated an astonishing brilliance in a narrow specialized field, such as mathematics, music, or art. And while 10 percent of autistic children demonstrated some degree of such savant talent, what interested Yuri were those rarest of individuals, known as prodigious savants, those few who arose with talent that stretched the very definition of genius. Worldwide, there were fewer than forty such individuals. But even among such exceptional individuals, a handful rose who dwarfed the others.

They arose from one genetic line.

An old Gypsy word echoed in his head.

Chovihanis.

Yuri stared through the window at the dark-haired girl.

Mapplethorpe mumbled beside him. “We must not let anyone catch a hint of what we’re doing. Or the Nuremberg Nazi trials will look like traffic court.”

Yuri didn’t respond. Mapplethorpe barely comprehended the full scope of his research. But after the Berlin Wall fell, Yuri had needed new resources to continue his work. It took a full decade to slowly test the waters in America. It seemed hopeless; then the political climate suddenly changed. The global war on terror had forged new alliances and allegiances. Enemies became allies. But more important, the boundaries of propriety were breached. It was a new era, with a new morality. An old catchphrase was now law: the ends justified the means.

Any means.

As long as it was for the common good.

Yuri’s government had known this all along. It was only the Americans who were late in facing this harsh reality.

“What’s that girl doing?” Mapplethorpe asked.

Yuri snapped out of his own reverie. He stood up. Sasha was at the easel, a black felt marker in her hand. Her arm flew up and down the stretch of butcher paper. She stabbed and stroked, very angular. There seemed no pattern. She worked one corner, then another.

Mapplethorpe snorted at the mess. “I thought you said she was talented in art.”

“She is.”

Sasha continued to work. The rectangle she originally drew in green began to fill with black swirls and swipes. She held her other arm straight out from her body, stiff as a plank, as if she sought to balance herself against some force beyond this world.

Finally both arms fell to her sides.

She turned away from the easel, dropped into a cross-legged crouch, and rocked slightly. Her brow was sweaty. She reached to a discarded toy wooden block and began rhythmically turning it in her fingers, as if she were trying to solve some puzzle known only to her.

Yuri turned his attention to her artwork.

Mapplethorpe joined him. “What was that all about? It’s just gibberish.”

“Nyet.” Yuri accidentally slipped into Russian, but he was worried…very worried.

He hurried to the door that led into the next room. Mapplethorpe followed. As he entered the child’s room, Sasha just rocked and twiddled the block in her fingers. From past experience, Yuri knew she would be shut down for a while.

He also had learned a thing or two about Sasha’s talent.

Reaching the easel, he ripped the butcher sheet down.

“What are you doing?” Mapplethorpe asked.

Yuri turned the drawing upside down and clipped it back onto the easel. Sasha sometimes drew in reverse. It was not uncommon among autistic savants. They often experienced the world through very different senses. Numbers had sounds. Words had smells.

Yuri glanced over to Sasha.

Her brilliant blue eyes remained fixed on her toy block.

Yuri turned back and noted Mapplethorpe’s amazement. The man drew closer to the drawing. He pointed, wordless with astonishment. Finally words tumbled out. “Dear God…that looks like an elephant in the center.”

Yuri stared, too. His heart pounded in his throat. She shouldn’t have been able to do that unless triggered. It had been such sketches that had led them to Dr. Polk—drawings of the Mall, of the Smithsonian Castle—leading them to set up a sniper’s nest in an unwatched corner of the Mall. They’d had to move quickly, responding in two hours. There was a limit to Sasha’s range.

Mapplethorpe leaned closer. “The room it’s in. I think I know that place. I took my grandchild there only two weeks ago. It’s the rotunda of the natural history museum.”

Yuri frowned. “The one on the national Mall?”

Where his quarry had been hiding for so long today.

Mapplethorpe nodded.

Yuri stared toward the mirror and saw only his own reflection. Had Sasha sensed them back there? And more important, had she sensed Mapplethorpe’s intense worry about what had been stolen by Dr. Polk?

There was only one way to find out.

Yuri pointed to the picture and spoke to Mapplethorpe. “I’d suggest you get your men over there. Immediately.”

6:48 P.M.

Gray continued deeper into the museum. Past the central rotunda with its stuffed elephant, Polk’s radioactive path led directly to a public stairwell. Gray followed it past the next floor and down farther again. It finally ended at a security door marked MUSEUM PERSONNEL ONLY. NO ADMITTANCE.

Gray tested the door. It was secured with an electronic lock. It required a magnetic employee card to pass through here. Gray frowned. So how did Polk get through here? Gray touched his throat mike and patched a call to central command.

Painter answered immediately. “Commander?”

“Sir, I need some help.” Gray explained where the trail ended. “I’ll need access past this point.”

“Hang tight, Gray. I’m going to upgrade your I.D. card’s clearance to encompass the Smithsonian museums.” Silence stretched for a bit. Gray imagined the director tapping at his computer.

Next to him, Kowalski leaned on the neighboring wall and whistled through his teeth.

“Try it now,” Painter finally said.

Gray swiped his card. He heard the lock’s tumblers release. “Got it. I’ll let you know what we find.”

Ending the call, Gray ducked through the door and set off into the off-limit spaces of the museum. It was not all that different from the rest of the building, if only slightly more utilitarian: marble floors honed to a lustrous sheen by decades of shuffling feet, wan fluorescent lighting, and wooden doors whose frosted glass windows were etched with scholarly enterprises.

ENTOMOLOGY, INVERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY, PALEOBIOLOGY, BOTANY.

The trail led through the maze—then the readings jostled higher as they approached an unmarked door. Gray waved the Gamma-Scout reader toward its handle. The digital numbers spiked. Stepping back, Gray noted a fainter trail continued down the hall. The hallway ahead ended at a cavernous space, lined on the far side by large steel roll-up doors. The museum’s loading docks. Gray stared up and down the hall, picturing a ghostly version of Polk. The professor must have entered the museum through the docks, then continued out the museum’s front door.

Had he done that to shake a tail?

Kowalski tried the door handle. “Unlocked,” he said and proved it by swinging the door open.

The dark space ahead smelled of dust, dry hay, and a hint of cedar.

Gray reached inside and found a light switch. He flicked it on. Racks and shelves filled the back half of a cavernous space. Wooden crates with shipping labels stapled to them were stacked in a pile along one side. Several had been cracked open. Old packing straw and more modern Styrofoam packing peanuts littered the floor.

A storage room.

To the left of the door, a single desk supported a computer and printer. Tables stretched along the other side, crowded with pottery and sections of decorated stone blocks. Someone had been taking inventory. Several larger objects rested on wooden floor pallets deeper in the room: a marble statue of a woman with her arms broken away, a corroded bronze sculpture of a bull’s head, a base of a stone pillar.

Gray followed the trail inside, wondering what had led the professor to trespass here. Had he just been hiding from a passing guard? But the professor’s path seemed direct. It led straight to one of the objects on the floor pallets, a dome of carved rock. The artifact stood waist-high with a hole on top. It looked like a granite model of a volcano, except it was covered with writing. Gray leaned closer to the inscriptions.

Ancient Greek.

Frowning, Gray tested it with the Gamma-Scout reader.

Polk’s trail circled around the pallet.

Gray traced the dead man’s footsteps. Why had Polk been fascinated with this artifact?

Before he could contemplate it further, a crash sounded to his left. He turned to see Kowalski backing away from one of the tables. He held the handle of an urn in his fingers. The rest of the vase lay shattered at his toes. “It…it broke.”

The man had a gift for the obvious.

Gray shook his head. He should have left Kowalski out in the hallway. He was like a bull in a china shop—only a bull had better self-control.

“It was wobbly, goddamn it.” Still, he sounded angry more at himself. “Come over here and see this.” He pointed the broken handle toward the table.

Gray stepped to his side. On the table were stacks of ancient Greek coins. From the gap in the second row, one of the coins was missing. Could it be Polk’s coin? Was this where he’d got ahold of it?

“I bumped the base. Tried to catch it.” Kowalski carefully placed the broken handle on the table. “It came apart in my hands.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’ll just take it out of your paycheck.”

“Damn it. How much do you think it cost?”

“A few hundred.”

A relieved whistle escaped him. “Well, that’s not too bad.”

“A few hundred thousand,” Gray clarified.

“Oh, sweet motherfu—”

Kowalski’s reaction was cut off by the rattle of the doorknob. Gray started to turn, but Kowalski’s thick mitt of a hand grabbed Gray’s upper arm and yanked him back. He shielded Gray with his own body while smoothly pulling a .45-caliber pistol from a shoulder holster.

The slight figure of a young woman entered. She was fumbling with her purse, oblivious of the two in the room. She even swiped blindly for the light switch until she seemed to realize two things at once: the lights were already on and a massive mountain of a man had a pistol leveled at her chest.

She squeaked and backed into the jamb, unable to find the doorway in her fright.

“Sorry,” Kowalski said and shifted his pistol toward the ceiling.

Gray hurried around the befuddled bodyguard. “It’s all right, ma’am. We’re museum security. We’re investigating a break-in.”

Kowalski pointed his pistol at the shattered vase on the floor. “Yeah, someone broke that.” He glanced to Gray for confirmation and collaboration as he holstered his weapon.

She clutched her purse to her chest. Her other hand fixed a pair of petite eyeglasses higher on her nose. With her chestnut hair cut in a bob and her small frame, she appeared to be no more than a college sophomore, but from the crinkled pinch of her eyes, bright with suspicion, she was probably a decade older.

“Can I see some identification?” she asked firmly and kept close to the open doorway.

Gray held up his black I.D. pass. It displayed his picture, along with the presidential seal embossed in gold. “I have a number you can call to confirm who we are.”

She squinted at the pass and seemed to relax slightly, but a tension remained in her shoulders. She stared around the room. “Was anything stolen?”

“Maybe you can better answer that,” Gray said, hoping she could help. “I noticed that there seems to be a coin conspicuously missing from the table here.”

“What?” She hurried over, abandoning any hesitation. With one look at the table, her expression fell into a forlorn look. “Oh, no…we had the collection on loan from the Delphi museum.”

Delphi again.

She glanced to the carved dome of rock, the one that seemed to have attracted Polk’s attention. It may have been because Kowalski was leaning on it. “Please don’t touch that.”

Kowalski straightened. He looked at his palm, as if it were to blame. He had the decency to blush around the collar. “Sorry.”

“May I ask what that is?” Gray said casually, nodding to the stone.

Her hands wrung together with worry. “The prize of the collection. For the upcoming exhibit. Thank God, it wasn’t vandalized by the thieves.” She circled it to be sure. “It’s over sixteen hundred years old.”

“But what is it?” Gray pressed.

“It’s called an omphalos. Which roughly translates as “navel.” In ancient Greece, the omphalos was considered to be the point around which the universe turned. There are many mythologies and stories associated with the omphalos, great powers attributed to it.”

“And how did you acquire it?”

She nodded to the table. “It came from the same collection as the rest. On loan from the museum at Delphi.”

“Delphi? Where the Oracle of Delphi had her temple?”

She glanced toward Gray, her expression surprised. “That’s right. The omphalos graced the inner sanctum of the temple. Its most holy chamber.”

“And this is that stone.”

“No. Sadly it’s only a replica. Until just recently, everyone thought this was the original omphalos, as described in the ancient histories of Plutarch and Socrates. But the sisterhood of Delphic oracles goes back three millennia, and this stone has been dated to half that age.”

“What happened to the original?”

“Lost to history. No one knows.”

She straightened and strode over to a smock hung on a peg by the door. Donning it, she removed her museum identification tag from her shirt and fixed it to the smock.

It was only then that Gray noted the tag. It bore her picture and her name beneath it.

POLK, E.

“Polk…,” he read aloud.

“Dr. Elizabeth Polk,” she said.

A tingle of misgiving iced through Gray. He suddenly knew why the professor had come here. “By any chance do you know an Archibald Polk?”

She fixed him with a more solid stare. “My father? Why?”

Chapter 3

September 5, 7:22 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Dead?”

Gray sat on the edge of the desk in the museum’s storage room. He knew the pain of what he had to tell her. Elizabeth Polk slumped in the chair, collapsed within her lab coat. There were no tears. Shock locked them away, but she took off her slim eyeglasses, as if readying herself.

“I heard about the shooting on the Mall,” she mumbled. “But I never thought…” She shook her head. “I’ve been in the cellars here all day.”

Where there was no cell phone reception, Gray noted silently. Painter had mentioned trying to reach Polk’s daughter. And she was right across the Mall the entire time.

“I’m sorry to press you on this, Elizabeth,” he said, “but when did you last see your father?”

She swallowed hard, starting to lose control. Her voice quavered. “I…I’m not sure. A year ago. We had a falling-out. Oh, God, what I said to him…” She placed a hand on her forehead.

Gray read the regret and pain in her eyes. “I’m sure he knew you loved him.”

Her eyes flashed to him, going harder. “Thank you for your words. But you didn’t know him, did you?”

Gray sensed the tough core hidden behind that mousy, bookish exterior. He faced her anger, knowing it was directed inward rather than at him. Kowalski had retreated to the far side of the room, plainly uncomfortable with the whole scene.

Gray twisted where he sat and pointed to the desktop. The rows of ancient coins still lined a paper blotter there. “I know because we found a coin on your father’s body.” Gray recalled what Painter had told him about it. “A coin with the bust of Faustina the Elder on one side and the Temple of Delphi on the other.”

Her eyes widened. She stared down at the gap in the row where the coin once lay.

Gray lifted an arm. “He came here before he was shot. To your office.”

“It’s not my office,” she mumbled, glancing around, as if searching for the ghost of her father. “I’m doing research for my doctoral dissertation. In fact, it was my father who pulled some strings and got me this graduate position at the Delphi Museum in Greece. I’d been out there until a month ago. I’m overseeing the installation of this exhibit. I didn’t think my father knew I was here. Especially after our—” She waved away what she was going to say next.

“He must’ve been keeping tabs on you.”

A few tears did flow, just enough to trickle down one cheek. She brusquely dabbed her face with the sleeve of her lab coat.

Gray gave her a moment. He stared over at Kowalski, who was walking in a bored circle around the stone omphalos, like a slow orbiting moon. Gray knew Elizabeth’s father had followed that same orbit. But why?

Elizabeth voiced the same question. “Why did my father come here? Why did he take the coin?”

“I don’t know. But I’m fairly certain your father knew he was being tracked, hunted.” He pictured Polk haunting the edges of the Mall, seeking some way of contacting Sigma in person, staying hidden. “He might have taken the coin in case he was murdered. The coin was grimy, easy to miss in a pocket if the assailant did a cursory search of the body. But a more thorough exam at a morgue would’ve revealed the strangeness of the coin. I think he hoped it would lead here. To this office where he would’ve known you’d report it stolen.”

The woman’s tears had dried as he spoke. “But why would he do that?”

Gray closed his eyes, thinking hard, putting himself in the man’s shoes. “If I’m right about the coin, your father was worried he would be searched. He must’ve known the hunters were after something. Something he possessed…”

Of course.

Gray opened his eyes and stood. He drew Elizabeth up, too. Her eyes studied the room, but not for ghosts this time. Gray saw the understanding in the pinch of her brows. She donned her eyeglasses.

“My father might have hidden here what his murderers were looking for.”

Gray headed to where Kowalski waited beside the conical-shaped stone. “Your father seemed particularly interested in the temple’s omphalos.”

Elizabeth followed with a frown. “How could you possibly know that?”

Gray briefly explained about the radiation exposure and lifted the Gamma-Scout. “Your father’s trail led here, and for me to get such a strong reading from it, he must have spent some time near the artifact.”

Elizabeth had paled a bit upon hearing of her father’s affliction. Still, she waved to Kowalski. “There’s an emergency flashlight plugged into that wall over there.”

He nodded and fetched it.

She approached the stone. “While it looks solid, it’s actually hollow inside. No more than an upended bowl of carved granite.” She pointed to the hole at the top.

Gray understood. Her father could have easily dropped something inside it. He accepted the flashlight from Kowalski, leaned over the stone, and pointed the beam down into the heart of it. It was indeed hollow. At the bottom, the slats of the pallet that supported the stone were illuminated. He shifted the beam around and spotted something off to one side. It looked like a polished stone, roughly the size of a cantaloupe.

“Can’t tell what it is,” he mumbled and straightened. “We need to lift the stone.”

“It’s heavy,” Elizabeth explained. “Took six men to uncrate it. But there’s a crowbar among the tools in back. We should be able to tilt it up. But we’ll have to be careful.”

“I’ll go get it,” Kowalski said.

As he stepped away, the telephone on Elizabeth’s desk rang. She crossed toward it and checked the caller ID on the handset. “It’s security.” She checked her wristwatch, then glanced to Gray. “It’s already after closing hours. They must be checking on how long I’ll be working down here.”

“Tell them at least another hour.”

She nodded and picked up the phone. She confirmed who she was, then listened. Her eyes widened. “I understand. We’ll be right up.” She hung up the phone and turned to Gray. “Someone called in a bomb threat. Here at the museum. They’re evacuating the building.”

Gray remained silent. He knew such a threat, especially now, was no coincidence. He read the same understanding in the woman’s eyes. “Someone knows,” he said slowly. “After today’s shooting on the Mall, no one will dismiss a bomb threat. It’s the perfect cover to run a covert sweep of the building.”

He turned to study the omphalos.

Time was running out for delicacy.

Kowalski must have understood this, too. He returned from the back of the storage room. “I heard,” he said. Instead of the padded crowbar, he hefted a large sledgehammer on his shoulder. “Get back.”

“No!” Elizabeth warned.

But Kowalski clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer. He closed the distance in one stride, raised the hammer over his head, and swung it down.

Elizabeth gasped in fear for the centuries-old artifact.

But instead of hitting the ancient stone, the sledgehammer slammed into the slats of the pallet that supported the omphalos. Wood splintered and broke. Kowalski lifted the hammer again and cracked more slats on the same side.

With half its weight now unsupported, the great stone tilted toward the crushed side of the pallet—then slowly toppled over, upending itself. More slats were pulverized under its weight, but it seemed undamaged from its slow roll.

Kowalski shouldered the hammer.

Elizabeth stared at the man, her expression wavering between horror and awe.

Gray hurried to the pallet and dropped to a knee. The object hidden under the omphalos now rested in plain view. It was not a polished stone. Gray lifted his Gamma-Scout reader toward it. It read hot, but no worse than the binoculars they’d found earlier.

Satisfied, Gray retrieved it and stood.

Elizabeth stumbled back as he straightened.

Kowalski’s eyes tightened. “A skull? Is that what this is all about?”

Gray examined it closer. The skull was small and missing its lower jaw. He turned it over. The remaining teeth displayed prominent fangs in a protuberant muzzle. “Not human,” he said. “From the size and shape of the cranium, I’d say it’s simian. Possibly a chimpanzee.”

Kowalski’s expression soured even further. “Great,” he drawled out. “More monkeys.”

Gray knew the large man had developed a distaste for all things simian following a previous mission. Something to do with baboons…or apes. Gray could never get a straight story from the man.

“But what…what’s that attached to the skull’s side?” Elizabeth pointed out.

Gray knew what she meant. It was hard to miss. Affixed to the temporal bone, just above the opening to the ear canal, rested a curved block of stainless steel.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Maybe a hearing aid. Perhaps even one of the new cochlear implants.”

“For a damn monkey?” Kowalski asked.

Gray shrugged. “We’ll have to examine it later.”

“Why did my father bring that here?”

Gray shook his head. “I don’t know. But someone wanted to stop him. And someone still wants it back.”

“What do we do?”

“We find a way out of here. Before anyone knows we recovered it.”

Gray took a moment to search the rest of the pallet, in case the professor had left anything else here. Like a note explaining everything. One could always hope. He pointed his flashlight into the hollow cavity of the upended omphalos.

Nothing.

As he swung the beam away, the light glanced over the inner surface. Something caught his eye there. It looked like a spiraling groove carved into its surface, starting at the lip and corkscrewing up toward the hole. He reached a finger to it and realized it was a single long line of cursive script. Leaning over, he narrowed the flashlight’s beam upon the writing.

Elizabeth noted his attention. “Ancient Sanskrit.”

Gray straightened back. “What’s Sanskrit doing on the inside—?”

Kowalski cut him off. “Does it friggin’ matter already?” He pointed a thumb toward the door. “Remember that bomb scare. Shouldn’t we be haulin’ ass out of here?”

Gray straightened. The man had a point. They’d wasted enough time. The sweep of the building was probably already—

A muffled shout echoed from the hallway.

Kowalski rolled his eyes in a plain expression of I told you so.

“What do we do?” Elizabeth asked.

7:37 P.M.

Painter knocked on the half-open door to the pathologist’s office.

“Come in,” Malcom called out. “Jones, do you have the data from—?”

Painter pushed the door wider just as Malcolm swung around in his desk chair. The pathologist still wore a set of blue scrubs. His glasses rested atop his head. He was rubbing at the bridge of his nose when he noted who stood in his doorway.

His eyes widened. “Director…” He made a motion to stand, but Painter waved him to remain seated as he entered.

“Brant alerted me that you had called. I was just heading back to my office from video surveillance.”

“Any footage of the shooter?”

“Not so far. We’re still combing records. But it’s a mountain of videos to sift. And some sources are slow to respond.”

Since 9/11, surveillance of the capital had been heightened. For a full ten miles in all directions around the White House, multiview cameras monitored every square foot of streets, parks, and public spaces. And over 60 percent of interior spaces, too. Several cameras had picked up pieces of Dr. Archibald Polk’s path across the Mall. They confirmed what Gray had assessed with his radiological tracker. But nagging gaps persisted. Though they had footage of Polk collapsing in Gray’s arms, no camera caught even a glimpse of rifle flash or any sign of the shooter.

It was worrisome.

Painter was beginning to suspect that the sniper had known about the cameras and had found a hole in the surveillance net in which to hide. Or worse yet, someone could have tampered with the Mall’s footage and purposefully deleted any evidence of the assassin.

Either way, such collusion suggested that Professor Polk’s murderer might have powerful ties here in Washington. But who and where? If Polk’s history as a Jason had anything to do with the murder, then it opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities. The Jasons had their fingers in top secret projects of every shade from gray to deep black.

Painter knew he would be getting no sleep tonight.

None of them would.

“Any word from Gray?” Malcolm asked, shifting a pile of papers from a chair and offering a seat to Painter.

“He’s searching the natural history museum. Polk’s trail led there.”

“Hopefully he’ll find something, but that was also why I patched a call to you. I may have discovered more bread crumbs to follow.”

Curious, Painter sank into the chair. Malcolm rotated his computer’s flat-screen monitor to a better angle for Painter to view.

“What did you find?” Painter asked.

“Something curious. I don’t know really what to make of it, but it might give us someplace to continue the investigation. Knowing the victim was suffering from radiation poisoning, I sought some clue to the source. Initial examination of Polk’s gastrointestinal tract and liver showed he didn’t ingest anything radiological in nature.”

“So no dinner poisoned with polonium-210 or the like?”

Malcolm nodded. “From the degree of radiodermatitis burns to his skin, I was fairly certain the radiation came from an environmental source. He must have been in some type of hot zone. Microanalysis of his hair showed the exposure was acute in nature. He’d been poisoned less than a week ago.”

“But where—?”

Malcolm held up a hand for patience and used his other to tap at his keyboard and bring up a map of the world on the monitor. “Trace amounts of radioactive debris were caught in the deep alveolar pockets in his lungs. Like coal dust in a miner’s lung. I ran the sample through a mass spectrograph and was able to determine a rough breakdown of the isotope content.”

He pointed to his screen. The left side of the computer monitor began to scroll with data. “Such information is often as unique as a fingerprint. It just took tapping into IAEA database in Vienna.”

Painter noted that the open search window had the organization’s name stenciled at the top: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY.

“The agency monitors hot spots around the world: mines, reactors, industrial sources. Despite what some might think, not all radiation is the same. We’re talking about material that is constantly decaying, whose isotope content varies, depending on where it might have been mined and how it was processed. The end result is radiation signatures unique to each use-site.”

“And the debris in the professor’s lungs?”

“I ran a search through the IAEA database and got a hit.”

“You know where Polk was exposed?”

He nodded to the screen as the scrolling stopped and the world map blew up, zooming into one location in central Russia. A name appeared in a highlighted box, a name synonymous with radiological disaster.

CHERNOBYL

What was Archibald Polk doing at Chernobyl? How had he been exposed to such a lethal level of radiation from the dead reactor site? The reactor was due this week to be sealed with a new Sarcophagus, a massive articulated steel dome. Amid all the new construction, had Polk somehow been exposed to a lethal dose of radiation there?

Before Painter could question Malcolm in more depth, his cell phone vibrated on his belt. He unhooked it and checked who was calling. It was his assistant. Frowning, he flipped it open.

“What is it, Brant?”

“Director, I received an alert from Homeland. There’s just been a bomb threat called in to the natural history museum.”

Painter’s fingers tightened on his cell phone.

The natural history museum…where Gray had been headed.

That couldn’t be good.

“Patch me through to Gray’s radio.”

He waited, cell phone at his ear. Malcolm stared over at him.

Had Gray called in the threat? Had someone else?

Either way, something was wrong.

He had confirmation a second later.

Brant came back on the line. “Sir, he’s not responding.”

7:56 P.M.

Elizabeth Polk appraised Gray Pierce as they neared the museum’s loading docks. Studying him askance, she noted the faded bruising on one side of his face. His sunburned complexion hid most of the contusions. The beating must have taken place a month or so ago. It gave the planes of his face a look of hammered copper and brought out the blue of his eyes. It was those same eyes that chilled her when he spotted the half dozen men clearing the museum’s loading dock and turned them back.

“Something’s not right here,” he said.

She caught a glimpse of the warehouse space past his shoulder. Lit by flickering fluorescents, the cavernous space was crowded with tall shelves stacked with cleaning supplies and dry goods for the various museum concession stores. A single forklift rested beside a series of pulleys and counterbalances for bringing in larger pieces of an exhibit. A steel roll-up door stood open to the right. Outlined against the waning daylight, a cadre of men in black riot gear had set up a cordon near the exit. Under the klaxon of the evacuation alarm, they were searching each worker and staff member who sought to exit in that direction.

A narrow-shouldered man in a blue suit oversaw it from a few steps away. He was plainly someone high up the food chain.

Gray forced her back down the hallway. He hefted his shoulder bag higher. It bore the museum logo and carried the strange skull her father had hidden in the museum’s storage room. At the thought of her father, a dull ache in her chest threatened to melt into sobbing tears. She held it back. She would address her loss at a quieter moment.

Down the hall, in the opposite direction of the docks, a shout echoed out the stairwell ahead, a call to search every room. Boots pounded down the stairs.

Gray stopped and turned to her. “Is there another way out of here?”

She nodded. “The service tunnels. Over this way.”

As she led them back again, Gray fixed her with those stormy eyes, questioning her knowledge.

“Some of the staff take their smoking breaks down there.” She glanced to him guiltily. She really needed to quit. Still, the habit had allowed her to bond with a few of the other researchers. A secret smokers’ club. And all it cost was the risk of emphysema and lung cancer. “We’re not supposed to smoke within the museum, of course. Fire danger, but it’s all stone and steam pipes down there.”

She led them to an unmarked door and keyed open the electronic lock with her card. The stairs on the far side were stained cement with a steel railing along one side. It led down in sharp turns.

Before they could enter, a low growl drew all their eyes back to the docks. A low shape slunk into view of the hallway. Thirty yards away. A German shepherd. It was outfitted with a black vest and was tethered to a man still out of view.

Elizabeth froze.

The dog spotted them and lunged forward, straining against his leash.

“Go,” Gray urged and pushed her through the open stairwell door and followed. His beefy partner crowded in behind them. It was hot and close. The museum’s air-conditioning did not extend here. The only light was a caged emergency bulb.

Gray closed the door with the barest click of the lock engaging. The alarm klaxon muffled. He waved them down the tight stairs and squeezed up to join her. “Do you know where the tunnels lead?”

She shook her head. “Not sure. I never went any farther than I had to. It’s a maze down there, branching in every direction. Rumors say even under the White House. But surely there must be a street exit somewhere.”

Behind them, something heavy hit the door above, followed by deep barks. Shouts echoed, chasing them down the stairs.

“Could it be a bomb-sniffing dog?” Elizabeth asked. “Maybe the threat is real.”

Gray’s partner, Kowalski, snorted. “Only around Pierce is a real bomb threat considered a good thing.”

At the bottom of the stairs, they hit a barred gate. Gray cranked the locking bar aside and creaked the gate open. The tunnels stretched in both directions, pitch-black, sweltering, smelling of wet cement and whispering with trickles of water.

“I hope someone brought the flashlight,” Kowalski commented.

Gray swore softly under his breath. He’d left the light back in the storeroom.

Elizabeth fished in her pocket and produced her cigarette lighter. It was an antique silver Dunhill. She flipped it open and rasped a small flame into existence. With practiced skill, she adjusted the flame.

“Nice,” Kowalski said. “I wish I’d brought one of my cigars.”

“Me, too,” Elizabeth mumbled back.

Kowalski did a double take in her direction.

Before he could say anything, light flooded down the stairs behind them. The alarm klaxon rang louder. Their pursuers had gotten through the upper door.

“Hurry.” Gray headed to the right. “Stay close.”

Elizabeth kept to Gray’s shoulder with Kowalski behind her. She held her lighter high. The flickering glow extended only a few yards ahead. Gray trotted down the tunnel. He kept one arm up, his fingertips trailing along the run of pipes overhead. He took the first branch to get them out of direct view of the stairwell exit.

A single low bark echoed to them.

Gray urged their flight into a run.

Elizabeth’s lab coat flapped behind her. Her flame burned through a nest of cobwebs as they raced around another turn.

“Where are we going?” Kowalski asked.

“Away,” Gray answered.

“That’s your big plan? Away?”

A burst of furious barking erupted. Shouts rang out. Their trail had been found.

“Forget what I said,” Kowalski corrected. “Away sounds just fine by me.”

In a tight group, they fled into the maze of tunnels.

Halfway across the city, Yuri sat on a bench under the spread of a cherry tree. It felt good to sit down. His knees ached, and his lower back threatened to spasm. He had dry-swallowed four tablets of Aleve. He had stronger medications back home, but nothing he dared bring into the States. It would be good to return to the Warren.

He stretched a leg and rubbed a knee.

As he rested, the sun was near to setting and cast long shadows across the parkland walkway. Steps away, a low cement wall bordered the path’s far side. Children and parents lined the edge and pointed down into the outdoor habitat beyond the wall. A small piece of China’s forestland had been re-created: a rocky outcropping sectioned into grottoes, ponds, and misty streams. Shrubs decorated its steep slopes, along with weeping willows, cork trees, and several species of bamboo. The habitat’s two occupants, two Giant pandas on loan from China—Mei Xiang and Tian Tian—had captured the delighted attention of the zoo’s last few visitors.

Including Sasha.

The girl stood with her arms folded atop the lip of the stone wall. One shoe swung rhythmically to strike the cement. But it was slowing down.

As he had hoped.

Yuri had brought the girl to the National Zoological Park after her performance with Mapplethorpe. From long experience, he knew the calming effect animals had on his charges. Especially Sasha. Yuri had no need to test the BDNF levels in the girl’s spinal fluid. After such an intense episode, the hormone levels of “brain-derived neurotrophic factors” had surely spiked to dangerous levels. He had not been prepared. Caught off guard by her performance, he knew he had to calm her down quickly. Away from her home environment, she would be especially agitated, vulnerable. There was a risk of lasting neural damage. He had seen it before. It had taken them decades to discover the innate relationship between autistic children’s mental health and the palliative effect of their interaction with animals.

So while Mapplethorpe executed a search of the natural history museum, Yuri had transported Sasha to the city’s famous zoological park. It was as close a facsimile to the Menagerie as he would find here in the foreign city.

Sasha’s kicking slowed even further. She was ramping down. Still, the toe of her patent leather shoes had become badly scuffed. But better her shoes than her mind.

Yuri felt a knot between his shoulder blades ease. He would get her on the next flight back to Russia. Once returned to the Warren, he would schedule her for a complete physical exam: blood chemistries, urinalysis, a full cranial CT scan. He had to be sure there was no damage.

But more important, he needed an answer as to how she had induced an episode on her own. That shouldn’t have happened. The cortical implant maintained a steady-state level of stimulation, tailored to each child’s ability. Sasha’s display back at Mapplethorpe’s office should not have happened unless her implant was remotely triggered to provoke such a response.

So what had happened? Had there been a malfunction in her implant? Had someone else triggered it? Or even more disturbing, was Sasha growing beyond the yoke of their control?

Despite the day’s heat and his relief, he still felt cold.

Something was wrong.

A flurry of noise erupted ahead of him. It came from the crowd lining the panda exhibit. Excited murmurs swelled. A flurry of camera flashes sparkled among the crowd. More people were drawn by the commotion. Yuri heard a named called out and repeated.

“Tai Shan…Tai Shan…”

He sat up straighter with a wince of protest from his back. He recognized the name from the zoo’s brochure. Tai Shan was the panda cub born to Mei Xiang a few summers back. The youngster must have wandered into sight.

The crowd jostled for a better view. More people gathered. Children were lifted to parents’ shoulders. Cameras flashed furiously. Frowning at the tourists’ manic response, Yuri stood up. He had lost sight of Sasha in the crush of the crowd. He knew she didn’t like to be touched.

He stepped across the walkway and pushed into the pack of people. The park would be closing in the next few minutes. It was time to go.

He reached the wall where Sasha had been standing.

She wasn’t there.

With his heart thudding, he searched the stretch of walls to either side. No sign of her ebony hair and red ribbons. He stumbled outward again, shouldering and pawing his way through the crowd. Grunted protests met his rude passage. A camera tumbled from someone’s hands and cracked against the pavement.

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He was yanked around.

“Mister, you’d better have a goddamn good reason—”

Yuri shook free. His eyes, bright with true panic, met the larger man. “My…my granddaughter. I’ve lost my granddaughter.”

Anger melted to concern.

With mostly parents in attendance, word spread quickly. It was every mother and father’s worst fear. Questions peppered him. What does she look like? What was she wearing? Others offered words of support, promising that she’d be found.

Yuri barely heard them, deafened by his own pounding heart. He should have never left her side, never sat down.

The crowd thinned around him, opening views in all directions.

Yuri turned a full circle. He searched, but he knew the truth.

Sasha was gone.

Chapter 4

September 5, 8:12 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Door!” Kowalski yelled from the rear.

Gray skidded to a stop and glanced behind him. Elizabeth Polk held out her lighter and revealed a small doorway, hidden two steps off the dark tunnel. Gray had rushed past it, too focused on the roof, searching for a street exit from the service tunnels.

Behind them, calls echoed from the searchers. A single harsh bark rang out as the trackers found their trail again. Gray had crisscrossed among tunnels, trying to lose them, but it proved fruitless, and they were losing ground.

Kowalski reached to the door and fought the handle. “Locked.” He punched the metal surface in frustration.

Coming up to his side, Gray noted an electronic key-lock below the handle. The lighter’s flame flickered across a small steel sign stenciled in Art Deco letters:

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

The door was a subterranean entrance to another of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums. Closest to the door, Elizabeth swiped her museum security card, but the lock remained dark. To make sure, Kowalski tugged the handle and shook his head.

“My card’s only good for the natural history museum,” Elizabeth said. “But I hoped—”

A fierce bark drew their attention around. The bobbling glow of flashlights lit up the far end of the tunnel.

“Better move it,” Kowalski said and stepped away from the door.

A shotgun blast erupted. Something sparked off the metal surface, striking where Kowalski had stood a second before. The round ricocheted off the door and spun across the cement floor, spitting blue sparks of electricity.

Kowalski danced away from it, like an elephant from a mouse.

Gray recognized the payload: a Taser XREP. Fired from a standard twelve-gauge, the weapon shot out a self-contained, wireless dart that packed a shocking neuromuscular jolt. It could drop a mountain gorilla.

“HOMELAND SECURITY! HALT OR WE’LL FIRE AGAIN!”

“Now they warn us,” Kowalski said and lifted his arms above his head.

Half hidden behind his partner’s bulk, Gray twisted around and swiped his black Sigma identification card through the key-lock. A small green light flicked into existence alongside the lock.

Thank God.

“HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. GET ON YOUR KNEES!”

Gray shoved the handle, and the door cracked open. It was dark beyond. Reaching behind him, he grabbed Elizabeth’s elbow. She flinched, then saw the half-open door. She, in turn, reached out and grabbed the back of Kowalski’s belt. He had his hands on his head and had been bending down to kneel.

He glanced back to them.

Gray shouldered the door open and pulled Elizabeth with him. Yanked off balance, Kowalski stumbled to one knee—then pushed off the floor and dove after them through the doorway.

Gray heard another blast of a shotgun.

Kowalski knocked into them and sent them sprawling across the dark stairs beyond the threshold. His other leg kicked the door shut—and kept kicking. “—oddamnmotherfu—!” he wailed between clenched teeth.

Gray spotted the sparking projectile impaled through the shoe of the man’s spasming leg. Elizabeth did, too. She climbed over him, pinned his ankle, and crushed the Taser shell under her shoe heel.

Kowalski’s leg continued to twitch for another breath, then stopped.

His cursing did not.

Gray stood and held out an arm to help him up. “You’re lucky it hit your shoe. The leather blunted the barbs from penetrating deeply.”

“Lucky!” Kowalski bent and rubbed the stabs through the polished leather. “Assholes ruined my new Chukkas!”

Muffled shouts approached the doorway.

“C’mon,” Gray urged and headed up.

Kowalski continued to gripe as they ran up the stairs. “Crowe’s buying me a new pair!”

Gray ignored him as he raced up the stairs.

Kowalski’s tirade continued. “Just leave the monkey skull down there. Let ’em have the goddamn thing.”

“No!” rang from both Elizabeth and Gray.

Gray heard the anger in the woman’s voice. It matched his own. Her father had died to keep the skull from his pursuers. Died in Gray’s arms. He wasn’t about to give it up.

They hit the upper stairwell door. It was locked, too. Pounding echoed on the door below. It wouldn’t take long for someone to secure a pass-key.

“Over here,” Elizabeth said and pointed to the darkened card reader.

Gray swiped his security I.D. and heard the lock release. He glanced behind him as he pushed the door open. Surely word was already spreading. Whoever was hunting them would know they were fleeing into the Museum of American History.

Gray led them out into a lighted hall. It was almost a match to the basement of the natural history museum, except here there were stacks of boxes in the hallway, crowding the way. Gray tested his own radio, but he still had no signal, buried too deeply under the museum.

“This way,” he said and aimed for a stairway that led up.

They almost bowled over an electrician in a work uniform, weighted down with a roll of conduit over his shoulder and a heavy belt of tools.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re go—!”

Something he saw in Gray’s expression silenced him. He backed out of the way and flattened against the wall. They hurried past him and upward. The farther they climbed, the more chaos they encountered: clusters of workmen, stripped walls, tangles of exposed ductwork. Reaching the next landing, they had to dodge around piles of Sheetrock and flats of stacked marble tiles. The growl of motors and whine of saws echoed from the doorway ahead. The air smelled of fresh paint and tasted of sawdust.

Gray recalled that the Museum of American History had been undergoing a massive renovation, updating its forty-year-old infrastructure, all to better showcase its three million historical treasures, from Abraham Lincoln’s top hat to Dorothy’s ruby slippers. The museum had been closed to the public for the past two years but was due to open next month.

From the look of things as Gray entered the museum’s central atrium, the grand reopening might be delayed. Plastic sheeting draped almost every surface; scaffolding climbed the three-story core of the renovation. Grand staircases swept from the first floor to the second. Directly overhead a massive skylight was still sheeted with paper.

Gray grabbed the nearest worker, a carpenter whose face was half covered by a respirator. “The exit! Where’s the nearest exit?”

The man squinted at him. “The Constitution Avenue exit is closed. You’ll have to climb to the second level. Head out the main Mall entrance.” He pointed to the staircase.

Gray glanced to Elizabeth, who nodded. They walked out as a group. Gray checked his radio again. Still nothing. Something or someone had to be blocking his signal.

They raced to the stairs and pounded up to the second level. It was less chaotic up here. The green marble floor looked freshly mopped, highlighting the silver stars embedded therein. Gray had a clear view from the central atrium to the glass doors of the Mall exit. He needed to make it out before—

Too late.

A knot of men bearing assault rifles swept into view outside the doors. They wore dark uniforms with patches at their shoulders.

Gray forced Kowalski and Elizabeth back.

Behind them, a growled bark echoed up from the first floor. Workers shouted in surprise.

“What now?” Kowalski asked.

From the Mall entrance, a bullhorn blasted. “HOMELAND SECURITY! THE BUILDING IS TO BE EVACUATED IMMEDIATELY! EVERYONE TO THE MAIN EXIT!”

“This way,” Gray said.

He led them off to the side, toward the largest piece of art on this floor’s gallery. The installation was an abstract flag, made up of fifteen ribbons of mirrored polycarbonate.

“We can’t keep running,” Elizabeth said.

“We’re not.”

“So we’re hiding?” Kowalski asked. “What about their dogs?”

“We’re not running or hiding,” Gray assured them.

He passed the shimmering flag. Its mirrored surface reflected a prismatic view of the museum. In bits and pieces, Gray saw the armed detail take up an impenetrable cordon across the only exit.

Passing one of the scaffoldings stacked with supplies and spare coveralls, Gray grabbed what he needed. He passed a few bundles to Kowalski. He kept what he needed himself: a can of paint and a plastic gallon of paint thinner. He headed into the hallway under the abstract flag. Kowalski read the gallery sign at the entrance and whistled under his breath.

“Pierce, what are you planning on doing?”

Gray led the way into the heart of the museum’s most treasured exhibits. It was the main reason for the entire renovation. They entered a long darkened hall. Seats lined one side opposite a wall of paneled glass on the other. Even the chaos behind them seemed to muffle under the weight of the historical treasure preserved behind the glass, one of the nation’s most important icons. It lay unfurled on a sloped display, a tatter of cotton and wool a quarter the size of a football field. Its dyes had faded, but it remained a dramatic piece of American history, the flag that inspired the national anthem.

“Pierce…?” Kowalski moaned, beginning to comprehend. “That’s the Star-Spangled Banner.”

Gray placed the can of paint on the floor and began to twist open the cap on the gallon of highly flammable paint thinner.

“Pierce…you can’t mean to…not even as a distraction.”

Ignoring him, Gray turned to Elizabeth. “Do you still have your lighter?”

8:32 P.M.

Sitting in the security office of the National Zoo, Yuri felt the weight of his seventy-seven years. All the androgens, stimulants, and surgeries could not mask the heaviness of his heart. A numbing fear had turned his limbs to aching lead; worry etched deeper lines in his face.

“We’ll find your granddaughter,” the head of security had promised him. “We have the park closed down. Everyone is looking for her.”

Yuri had been left in the office with a blond young woman who could be no older than twenty-five. She wore the khaki safari uniform of a zoo employee. Her name tag read TABITHA. She seemed nervous in his presence, unsure how to cope with his despair. She stood, coming out from behind the desk.

“Is there anyone you’d like to call? Another relative?”

Yuri lifted his head. He studied her for a breath. Her apple-cheeked youth…the years ahead of her. He realized he’d been little older than the girl when he’d stumbled out of the rattling truck into the highlands of the Carpathian mountains. He wished he had never found that Gypsy camp.

“Would you like to use the phone?” she asked.

He slowly nodded. “Da.” He could not put it off any longer. He’d already alerted Mapplethorpe, not so much to report to him, as to gain the cooperation of the D.C. policing authorities. But the man had been distracted, busy hunting down what had been stolen. Mapplethorpe had mentioned something about Dr. Polk’s daughter. But Yuri no longer cared. Still, Mapplethorpe had promised to raise an Amber Alert for the missing child. All D.C. resources and outlying counties would be alerted. She had to be found.

Sasha…

Her round face and bright blue eyes filled his vision. He should never have left her side. He prayed she had just wandered off. But among a park full of wild animals, even that best scenario was not without its dangers. Worse yet, had someone taken her, abducted her? In her current state, she would be pliable, easily suggestible. Yuri was well familiar with the number of pedophiles out there. They’d even had trouble at the Warren with some of their early employees. There had been so many children, too many. Mistakes had happened.

But not all of the abuses had been mistakes.

He shied from this last thought.

Tabitha carried over a portable telephone.

Yuri shook his head and took out his own cell phone. “Thank you, but it is a long-distance call,” he explained. “To Russia. To her grandmother. I’ll use my own phone.”

Tabitha nodded and backed away. “I’ll give you your privacy.” She stepped into a neighboring office.

Alone, Yuri dialed the number into his international cell phone. A small chip developed by Russian intelligence would bounce the signal off several cell towers, making it untraceable, along with scrambling the communication.

He had dreaded making this call, but he could wait no longer. The Warren had to be alerted, but it was very early in the morning back there. Not even four o’clock. Still, the phone was answered promptly, the voice curt and sharp.

“What is it?”

Yuri pictured the woman at the other end of the line, his immediate superior, Dr. Savina Martov. The two had discovered the children together, begun the Warren as a team, but Martov’s ties to the former KGB had pulled her above Yuri in command. There was a saying in Russia: No one left the KGB. And despite what Western leaders might think, that did not exclude the current Russian president. The man still surrounded himself with ex-members of Soviet intelligence. Major contracts were still placed in the hands of former operatives.

And Dr. Savina Martov was no exception.

“Savina, we have a major problem here,” he said in Russian.

He imagined her face frosting over. Like Yuri, she had also undergone hormonal, surgical, and cosmetic treatments, but she had fared even better than Yuri. Her hair was still dark, her features hardly blemished. She could pass for forty years old. Yuri suspected why. She did not battle that same knot of guilt that soured his gut. The sureness of her vision and purpose shone out of her face. Only when one looked in her eyes was the deception ruined. No amount of treatments would mask the cold calculation found there.

“You’ve still not found what was stolen from us?” she asked in harsh tones. “I’ve already heard that Polk has been eliminated. So then why—?”

“It’s Sasha. She’s gone missing.”

A long silence stretched.

“Savina, did you hear me?”

“Yes. I just had a report in from one of the dormitory workers. It’s why I’m up so early. They discovered three empty beds.”

“Who? Which children?”

“Konstantin, his sister Kiska, and Pyotr.”

Savina continued her report, how a search was under way across the Warren, but her voice grew hollow, echoing as if out of a deep well as Yuri had fixated on the last name.

Pyotr. Peter.

He was Sasha’s twin brother.

“When?” he blurted out. “When did the three rebyonka go missing?”

Savina sighed harshly. “They were there at the last bed check according to the matron on duty. So sometime in the last hour.”

Yuri glanced to his wristwatch.

Around the time Sasha vanished.

Was it just a coincidence, or had Pyotr somehow sensed his twin sister’s danger? Had it set the boy into a panic? But Pyotr had never shown such talent before. His empathic scores were high—especially with animals—but he’d never shown any of his sister’s abilities. Still, as twins, they were closer than any brother and sister. In fact, they still shared their own special language, an incomprehensible twin speak.

As Yuri clutched the phone to his ear, he suspected something more sinister was happening, that unknown forces—possibly an unknown hand—were manipulating events.

But whose?

Savina barked at him, drawing back his attention. “Find that girl,” she ordered. “Before it’s too late. You know what happens in two days.”

Yuri knew that only too well. It was what they had worked decades to accomplish, why they had performed so many acts of cruelty. All in order to—

A door slammed to the side. Yuri twisted around. The head of zoo security had returned. His tanned face was dour, lined with concern and worry.

Yuri spoke into the phone. “I’ll find her,” he said firmly, but the promise was more to himself than to his icy superior. He clicked off the line and faced the tall man, switching to English. “Has there been any sign of my granddaughter?”

“I’m afraid not. We’ve swept the park. So far no sign of her.”

Yuri felt a sinking in his gut.

A hesitation entered the security chief’s voice. “But I must tell you. There was a report of a girl matching your granddaughter’s description being carried into a van near the south exit.”

Yuri stood up, his eyes widening.

A hand raised, urging patience. “The D.C. police are following up on that. It might be a false lead. There’s not much more we can do.”

“There must be more.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Also on the way back here, I was informed that someone at the FBI has arranged an escort. They should be here any moment. They’ll take you back to your hotel.”

Yuri sensed the hand of Mapplethorpe involved with this last arrangement. “Thank you. For all your help.” Yuri crossed to the door and reached for the handle. “I…I need some fresh air.”

“Certainly. There’s a bench just outside.”

Yuri exited the security office. He spotted the park bench, crossed toward it, but once out of view of the office window, he continued past the bench and strode toward the park exit.

Yuri could not put himself into Mapplethorpe’s control. Not even now. The fool knew only a fraction of what was going on, just enough to keep the interest of United States intelligence organizations whetted. They had no suspicion how the world would change in the next few days.

He had to find Sasha before Mapplethorpe did.

And there was only one way to do that.

As he exited the park through a cordon of police, he dialed his cell phone, again engaging the encryption. As before, it was answered promptly, this time by an answering machine.

“You’ve reached the national switchboard for Argo, Inc. Please leave a message…”

Argo, Inc. was the cover for the Jasons. The pseudonym—Argo—was selected because it was the name of Jason’s ship out of Greek mythology.

Yuri shook his head at such foolishness as he waited for the beep. He had murdered one of their own just hours ago. Now he needed the help of the secretive cabal of American scientists. And he knew how to get it. Going back to the Cold War, the two sides had been waging a clandestine battle for technological supremacy, each side supported by their respective military establishments and intelligence communities. The tools of war were not just intellectual, but also involved more nefarious means: sabotage, coercion, blackmail. But likewise, being men and women of science, each side operated independently of the military. Over the decades, they had come to recognize two things: there was occasionally common ground between them, but more important, there was a firm line neither side would cross.

When such a scenario arose, a means of communication had been established, a panic button. Speaking into the phone, Yuri gave his encrypted cell number, followed by a code word that traced back to the Cold War.

“Pandora.”

8:38 P.M.

Smoke billowed out the hall of the Star-Spangled Banner gallery.

Gray kept his group clustered in the vestibule just off the central atrium of the museum. They had pulled painters coveralls over their street clothes and covered their faces with respirators. Gray had also splashed paint on their clothes.

He leaned and stared back into the flag gallery. Smoke burned his eyes, but he spotted the flames dancing and racing across the pools of paint thinner he’d spilled across the gallery’s wood floor. A moment later, emergency sprinklers engaged. Water jetted in a flood from ceiling spigots. An alarm klaxon rang out sharply.

Gray took an additional moment to make sure that the glass-enclosed display for the banner remained dry. He knew the display was an environmentally controlled chamber meant to preserve the icon for generations to come. For now, the case should protect the flag from the smoke and water.

Satisfied the treasure was safe, Gray turned his attention to the central atrium. Fresh shouts and cries echoed as smoke panicked the workers. The contractors were already on edge with the spreading word of a bomb scare.

And now the fire alarm and smoke.

Gray peeked around the vestibule’s exit and into the atrium.

Already summoned by the bullhorn to proceed to this single exit, men and women milled and pushed. Many hauled tools and backpacks. Panic surged the crowd toward the doors, where the armed men had been conducting a systematic search of each exiting worker, including being scented by a pair of German shepherds.

“Let’s go,” Gray said.

Under the cover of smoke and terror, the three joined the pressing throng. They split up to make it less likely they’d be recognized through their disguises. As they joined the panicked mass, it was like jumping into a storm-swept sea along a rocky coast. Pushed, shoved, jabbed, and jostled, Gray still kept a watch on the others.

The evacuating workers surged toward the doors. Despite the press, the armed men kept some semblance of order outside. Searches continued, but more cursory and swift. The dogs barked and tugged at their leads, aroused by the noise and confusion.

Gray gripped his shoulder bag tighter, hugging its weight to his chest. If need be, he could bull through the armed line, like a linebacker making a rush for the goal.

To the side, Gray spotted Elizabeth being shoved through a door and into the arms of one of the guards. She was brusquely searched and urged to move on. She passed one of the dogs, who barked and tugged at its lead. But it had not recognized her scent. The dog was merely agitated and confused by the press of people. Fresh paint and smoke also helped mask Elizabeth’s scent. She stumbled away from the cordon of men and out into the national Mall’s twilight.

Off on the other side, Kowalski hit the line next. To aid in his disguise, he carried a gallon of paint in each hand, which he was mostly using to knock people out of his way. He also was searched. Even the cans of paint were opened.

Gray held his breath. Not good. The panic was not disrupting the search as much as he would have liked.

Passing inspection, Kowalski was waved out into the Mall.

Gray pushed out the door and met the palm of one of the guards.

“Arms up!” he was ordered. The command was bolstered as another guard leveled a weapon at his chest.

Hands searched him swiftly. From head to toe. Luckily, he had stashed his ankle holster and weapon back in the gallery’s trash can.

Still…

“Open your bag!”

Gray knew there was no way he could resist. He dropped the bag and unzipped it. He pulled out the only thing it held: a small electric sander. The rest of the bag was shaken to make sure it was empty—then Gray was waved out of the way.

As he passed the barking dog, Gray noted a man standing to the side, dressed in a suit. No body armor. He had a Bluetooth headset fixed to his ear. He was barking orders, plainly in charge. Gray also remembered seeing him at the dock of the natural history museum.

Passing him, Gray spotted the credentials affixed to his jacket pocket.

DIA.

Defense Intelligence Agency.

Gray noted the name in bold type: MAPPLETHORPE.

Before his attention was noticed, Gray continued out into the Mall. He circumspectly joined the others well away from the museum and the confusion, just a trio of workers reuniting. Gray retaped his radio’s throat mike under his jaw. He attempted to raise Sigma Command.

Finally, a familiar voice responded.

“Gray! Where are you?”

It was Painter Crowe.

“No time to explain,” Gray said. “I need an unmarked car at the corner of Fourteenth and Constitution.”

“It’ll be there.”

As he headed toward the extraction point, Gray held out a hand toward Kowalski.

The large man passed over one of the gallons of paint. “Just carrying the thing creeps me out.”

Gray accepted the paint can with relief. Submerged at the bottom lay hidden the strange skull. Gray had chanced that no one would explore too closely the depths of the thick latex paint, especially carried by a worker whose coveralls were splashed with the same paint. Once the skull was cleaned, maybe they’d finally have some answers.

“We made it,” Elizabeth said with a ring of relief.

Gray did not comment.

He knew this was far from over.

Halfway around the world, a man awoke in a dark, windowless room. A few small lights shone from a neighboring bank of equipment. He recognized the blink and beat of an EKG monitor. His nose caught a whiff of disinfectant and iodine. Dazed, he sat up too quickly. The few lights swam, like darting fish in a midnight sea.

The sight stirred something buried. A memory.

…lights in dark water…

He struggled to sit up, but his elbows were secured to the railings of the bed. A hospital bed. He could not even pull his arms free of the bedsheet. Weak, he lay back down.

Have I been in an accident?

As he took a breath, he sensed someone watching him, a prickling warning. Turning his head, he vaguely made out the outline of a doorway. A dark shape stirred at the threshold. A shoe scraped on tile. Then a furtive whisper. In a foreign language. Russian, from the sound of it.

“Who’s there?” he asked hoarsely. His throat burned, as if he had swallowed acid.

Silence. The darkness went deathly still.

He waited, holding his breath.

Then a flash of light bloomed near the doorway. It blinded, stung. He instinctively tried to raise a hand to shield his eyes, forgetting his arms were still secured to the bed.

He blinked away the glare. The flash came from a tiny penlight. The shine revealed three small figures slinking into his room. They were all children. A boy—twelve or thirteen—held the light and shielded a girl maybe a year or two younger. They were followed by a smaller boy who could be no more than eight years old. They approached his bed as if nearing a lion’s den.

The taller boy, plainly the leader, swung to the younger one. He whispered in Russian, unintelligible but plainly a concerned inquiry. He called the younger boy a name. It sounded like Peter. The child nodded, pointed to the bed, and mumbled in Russian with a ring of certainty to his words.

Stirring in the bed, he finally rasped out, “Who are you? What do you want?”

The taller boy shushed him with a glare and glanced toward the open doorway. The children then split up and crossed around the bed. The leader and the girl began freeing the straps that bound his limbs. The smaller boy held back, eyes wide. Like his companions, the child was dressed in loose pants and a dark gray turtleneck sweater with a vest over it, along with a matching cable-knit hat. The boy stared straight at him, unnervingly so, as if reading something on his forehead.

With his arms freed, he sat up. The room swam again, but not as much as before. He ran his hand over his head, trying to steady himself. Under his palm, he found his scalp smooth and a prickly line of sutures behind his left ear, confirming this supposition. Had he been shaved for surgery? Still, as his palm ran across the smooth top of his head, the sensation felt somehow familiar, natural.

Before he could ponder this contradiction, he pulled his other hand into view. Or rather tried to. His other arm ended in a stump at the wrist. His heart thudded harder in shock. He must’ve been in a horrible accident. His remaining hand trailed across the tender sutures behind his ear, as if trying to read Braille. Obviously a recent surgery. But his wrist was calloused and long healed. Still, he could almost sense his missing fingers. Felt them curl into a phantom fist of frustration.

The taller boy stepped back from the bed. “Come,” he said in English.

From the clandestine nature of his release and furtive actions of his liberators, he sensed some amount of danger. Dressed in a thin hospital gown, he rolled his feet to the cold tiled floor. The room tilted with the motion.

Whoa…

A small groan of nausea escaped him.

“Hurry,” the taller boy urged.

“Wait,” he said, gulping air to settle his stomach. “Tell me what is going on.”

“No time.” The tall boy stepped away. He was gangly, all limbs. He attempted to sound authoritative, but the cracking in his voice betrayed both his youth and his terror. He touched his chest, introducing himself. “Menia zavut Konstantin. You must come. Before it is too late.”

“But I…I don’t…”

“Da. You are confused. For now, know your zavut is Monk Kokkalis.”

Making a half-scoffing noise, he shook his head. Monk Kokkalis. The name meant nothing to him. As he attempted to voice his disagreement, to correct the mistake, he realized he had no ammunition, only a blank where his name normally resided. His heart clutched into a strained knot. Panic narrowed his vision. How could that be? He fingered the sutures again. Had he taken a blow to the head? A concussion? He sought for any memory beyond waking up here in this room, but there was nothing, a wasteland.

What had happened?

He stared again at the EKG monitor still connected to his chest by taped lead wires. And over in the corner stood a blood pressure monitor and an I.V. pole. So if he could name what lay around him, why couldn’t he remember his own name? He searched for a past, something to anchor him. But beyond waking up here in this dark room, he had no memory.

The smaller of the two boys seemed to sense his growing distress. The child stepped forward, his blue eyes catching the flash of the penlight. Monk—if that was really his name—sensed the boy knew more about him than he did himself. Proving this, the child seemed to read his heart and spoke the only words that would stir him from the bed.

The boy held up a small hand toward him, his fingers splayed, punctuating his need. “Save us.”

Chapter 5

September 5, 9:30 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Chernobyl?” Elizabeth asked. “What was my father doing in Russia?”

She stared across the coffee table at the two other men. She was seated in an armchair with her back to a picture window that overlooked the woods of Rock Creek Park. They had been driven to this location after escaping the museum. Gray had used the words safe house, which had done little to make her feel safe. It was like something out of a spy novel. But the charm of the house—a two-story craftsman built of clinker brick and paneled in burnished tiger oak—helped calm her.

Somewhat.

She had washed up upon arriving, taking several minutes to scrub her hands and splash water on her face. But her hair still smelled of smoke, and her fingernails were still stained with paint. Afterward, she had sat for five minutes on the commode with her face in her palms, trying to make sense of the last few hours. She hadn’t known she was crying until discovering her hands were damp. It was all too much. She still hadn’t had a chance to process the death of her father. Though she didn’t doubt the truth of it, she had not come to accept the reality.

Not until she had some answers.

It was those questions that finally drew her out of the bathroom.

She eyed the newcomer across a table set with coffee. The man was introduced as Gray’s boss, Director Painter Crowe. She studied him. His features were angular, his complexion tanned. As an anthropologist, she read the Native American heritage in the set of his eyes—despite their glacial blue hue. His dark hair ran with a small streak of white over one ear, like a heron feather tucked there.

Gray shared the sofa with him, crouched and sifting through a stack of papers on the table.

Before anyone could answer her question, Kowalski returned from the kitchen in his stocking feet. His freshly polished shoes rested on the cold hearth. “Found some Ritz crackers and something that looked like cheese. Not sure. But they had salami.”

He leaned to place the platter in front of Elizabeth.

“Thank you, Joe,” she said, grateful for the simple and real gesture amid all the mystery.

The big man blushed a bit around the ears. “No problem,” he grumbled as he straightened. He pointed to the platter, seemed to forget what he was going to say—then with a shake of his head, retired to inspect his shoes again.

Painter sat up straighter, drawing back Elizabeth’s attention. “As to Chernobyl, we don’t know why your father went there. In fact, we ran his passport. There’s no record of him visiting Russia, or for that matter, ever reentering the United States. We can only assume he was traveling with a false passport. The last record we have of his travels was from five months ago. He flew to India. That’s the last we know about his whereabouts.”

Elizabeth nodded. “He travels there often. At least twice a year.”

Gray shifted straighter. “To India. Why?”

“For a research grant. As a neurologist, he was studying the biological basis for instinct. He worked with a professor of psychology at the University of Mumbai.”

Gray glanced to his boss.

“I’ll look into it,” Painter said. “But I had already heard of your father’s interest in instinct and intuition. In fact, it was the basis for his involvement with the Jasons.”

This last was directed at Gray, but Elizabeth stiffened at the mention of the organization. She could not hide her distaste. “So you know about them—the Jasons.”

Painter glanced to Gray, then back to her. “Yes, we know your father was working for them.”

“Working? More like obsessed with them.”

“What do you mean?”

Elizabeth explained how working with the military grew into an all-consuming passion with her father. Each summer, he’d disappear for months at a time, sometimes longer. The rest of his year was devoted to his responsibilities as a professor at M.I.T. As a result, he was seldom home. It strained relations between her parents. Accusations grew into fights. Her mother came to believe her father was having an affair.

The tension at home only drove her father farther away. A rocky marriage became a ruin. Her mother, already a borderline alcoholic, tipped over the edge. When Elizabeth was sixteen, her mother got drunk and crashed the family’s SUV into the Charles River. It was never determined whether it was an accident or a suicide.

But Elizabeth knew who deserved the brunt of the blame.

From that day forward, she seldom spoke to her father. Each retreated into their own world. Now he was gone, too. Forever. Despite her loss, she could not discount a burning seed of anger toward him. Even his strange death left so much unanswered.

“Do you think his involvement with the Jasons had anything to do with his death?” she finally asked.

Painter shook his head. “It’s hard to say. We’re still early in the investigation. But I was able to discover which classified military project was assigned to your father. It was called Project—”

“—Stargate,” Elizabeth finished for him. She took some satisfaction from the man’s startled expression.

Kowalski sat up straighter by the fireplace. “Hey, I saw a movie about that…had aliens and stuff, right?”

“Not that Stargate, Joe,” she answered. “And don’t worry, Mr. Crowe. My father didn’t breech his top secret clearance. I’d heard my father mention the project by name a couple of times. Then a decade later, I read the declassified reports from the CIA, released through the Freedom of Information Act.”

“What’s this project about?” Gray asked.

Painter nodded at the pile of papers on the table. “The full details are there, going back to the Cold War. It was officially overseen by the country’s second-largest think tank, the Stanford Research Institute, which down the line would help develop stealth technologies. But back in 1973, the institute was commissioned by the CIA to investigate the feasibility of using parapsychology to aid in intelligence gathering.”

“Parapsychology?” Gray raised an eyebrow.

Painter nodded. “Telepathy, telekinesis…but mostly they concentrated on remote viewing, using individuals to spy upon sites and activities from vast distances using only the power of their minds. Sort of like telepathy at a distance.”

Kowalski snorted his derision from across the room. “Psychic spies.”

“As crazy as that might sound, you have to understand that during the darkest days of the Cold War, any perceived advantage by the Soviets had to be matched in turn by our own intelligence. Any technological gap could not be tolerated. The Soviet Union was pulling out all the stops. To the Soviets, parapsychology was a multidisciplinary field, encompassing bionics, biophysics, psychophysics, physiology, and neurophysiology.”

Painter nodded to Elizabeth. “Like the work your father was performing on intuition and instinct. The neurophysiology behind it.”

Elizabeth glanced at Gray. From the wary look in his eyes, he seemed hardly convinced, but he continued listening silently. So she did the same.

“According to reports by the CIA, the Soviets had begun producing results. Then in 1971, the Soviet program suddenly went into deep-black classification. Information dried up. All we could ascertain was that research continued in Russia, funded by the KGB. We had to respond in kind or be left behind. So the Stanford Research Institute was commissioned to investigate.”

“And what were their results?” Gray asked.

“Mixed at best,” Painter acknowledged.

Elizabeth had also read the declassified reports. “In truth, there was little success with the project.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Painter countered. “Official reports showed that remote viewing produced useful results fifteen percent of the time, which was above statistical probability. And then there were the exceptional cases. Like a New York artist, Ingo Swann. He was able to describe buildings in fine detail when given mere longitude and latitude coordinates. His hits, according to some officials, rose up to the eighty-five percent range.”

Painter must have read the continuing doubt in both their eyes. He tapped the stack of papers. “The Stanford Research Institute’s results were replicated by testing at Fort Meade and at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory. In addition, there were several prominent successes. One of the most cited cases involved the kidnapping and rescue of Brigadier-General James Dozier. According to the physicist in charge of the project, one remote viewer ascertained the name of the town where the general was being held, while another described details of the building, all the way down to the bed where he was chained. Such results are hard to readily dismiss.”

“Yet it was,” Elizabeth said. “From my understanding, the research stopped in the mid-1990s. The program was dismantled.”

“Not entirely,” Painter added cryptically.

Before he could explain, Gray interrupted. “But back to the beginning, what does all this have to do with the Jasons?”

“Ah, I was just going to get to that. It seems that the Stanford Research Institute, like the Soviets, had begun to broaden the parameters of their research, extending it into other scientific disciplines.”

“Like neurophysiology,” Gray said. “Dr. Polk’s work.”

Painter nodded. “While the project was deeply classified, they did outsource to two Jasons who were doing parallel research. One of them was your father, Elizabeth. The other was Dr. Trent McBride, a biomedical engineer in brain physiology.”

Elizabeth knew that name. She remembered late-night visits, her father sequestering himself with strangers in his study, including Dr. McBride. He was hard to forget with his loud, boisterous voice, but in a good-hearted way. He also brought her gifts when she was younger. First editions of Nancy Drew.

“I attempted to contact Dr. McBride,” Painter continued. “Only to learn that no one’s heard from him in the last five months.”

Elizabeth felt a cold chill. Five months. “The same time my father flew to India.”

She shared a worried glance with Gray.

What was going on?

9:40 P.M.

Yuri Raev exited the elevator on the subbasement floor of the research facility. After getting the phone call, it had taken him forty-five minutes to reach the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland. The building housed half a million square feet of laboratory space, much of it designated for BL-3 biohazard research, meaning it dealt with all manner of infectious diseases.

Yuri had used the panic code—Pandora—to reach the Jasons. It had taken another ten minutes to patch an alert to those he sought, an inner cabal of the organization who had cooperated with the Russians on the project for the greater good of both nations. Yuri had hoped to get the Jasons working on his behalf, to keep Sasha out of Mapplethorpe’s hands. The Jasons, with their various scientific backgrounds, understood the delicacy it took in handling the child, both physiologically and psychologically.

Mapplethorpe on the other hand was all about brinkmanship, political ambitions, and blind self-interest. Yuri didn’t trust the man.

With Sasha missing, Yuri needed allies on American soil.

He’d been instructed to meet Dr. James Chen, a neurologist and a member of the inner circle, to plan a strategy.

They would be joined by another.

Someone who could help, he was cryptically told.

Yuri was given specific directions and clearance to the location of the rendezvous. He started down the hallway. At this hour, all the doors were closed. Few laboratories were down at this level. As he walked, bleach burned his nose and masked a muskier scent. Behind one door, he heard a familiar soft hoot of something simian. Here was where the facility must house its live-animal research subjects, deserted of personnel at this hour.

He checked the room number.

B-2 340.

He found the door with a frosted glass panel and knocked. A shadow passed across the pane, and the door opened promptly.

“Dr. Raev. Thank you for coming.”

Yuri barely got a glimpse of the young Asian man as he turned away. He wore a white laboratory coat over blue denim pants. A pair of eyeglasses rested atop his head, as if forgotten there. The room held a utilitarian table along one wall, and a bank of stainless-steel cages filled the opposite side. A few whiskered black noses poked between the bars. The scritch-scratch of tiny nails whispered from the cages. Laboratory rats. Only these were hairless, except for their whiskers.

Dr. Chen led him through an open back door. There he found a cluttered office: a steel desk stacked with journals, a whiteboard jotted with boxed to-do lists, and a bookcase crammed with glass specimen jars.

Yuri was surprised to find a familiar figure hulked behind the desk, a cell phone at his ear. The man, edging toward his midfifties, demonstrated his Scottish heritage in his massive frame, ruddy cheeks, and a red-and-gray beard tidily trimmed close to a jutting jaw. He was the head of the cabal of Jasons assigned to assist the Russians—and also a colleague and longtime friend of Archibald Polk.

Dr. Trent McBride.

“He’s just arrived,” the man said into the phone with a nod toward Yuri. “I’ll brief everyone in an hour.”

McBride closed his cell phone, stood, and held out his hand. “I’ve been updated on your situation, Yuri. Considering the girl’s fragile state, this is a top priority. We’ll do what we can to help find the child.”

Yuri shook his hand and sat down. Although startled, he felt relieved to find McBride here. Beneath his good-natured bravado, the man had a sharp and practical mind.

“So then you understand,” Yuri said, “how vital it is that we acquire her again? And soon.”

He nodded. “How many hours can the girl survive without her medication?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And her last injection?”

“Seven hours,” he answered grimly.

That leaves Sasha only a little over a day to be found.

“Then we’ll have to move fast,” McBride said. “As you might suspect, Mapplethorpe had already called me. In fact, that’s why I’m here myself.”

“I thought you were in Geneva. Hadn’t you decided to keep a low profile? To keep hidden?”

“Just until matters with Archibald settled out.” His eyes hardened slightly at Yuri. “Which it seems it has. Though the outcome could have been better. He was my friend.”

“You know, as well as I, that Dr. Polk would not have survived another few days. I had to do what was necessary.”

McBride seemed little mollified.

“And if you recall,” Yuri added, “I voted against approaching Dr. Polk in the first place.”

McBride sagged back into his chair with a squeak. “I truly thought Archibald would be more amenable, especially once he saw the project firsthand. After all, it was an extension of his life’s work. And considering the threat he posed, the only other option was—”

Again a sad shrug.

Dr. Polk had been treading too close to the heart of the research project. Closer than even McBride knew. It left them only two choices: recruit him or eliminate him.

Recruitment failed…disastrously.

Brought to the Warren, the man had ended up escaping with valuable intelligence. They had no choice but to hunt him down.

“I’m sorry about Archibald,” Yuri said.

And he truly was. Dr. Polk’s death, while a tragic necessity, was still a profound loss. On his own, the professor had accomplished so much, even coming close to exposing what the Russians had been keeping secret from the Americans. Ultimately both sides had underestimated Dr. Polk’s resourcefulness.

Both prior to kidnapping him and afterward.

Yuri continued. “In regards to the missing girl—”

McBride interrupted. “I presume she is one of your Omega subjects.”

He nodded. “Tested at the ninety-seven percentile range. She’s vital to our project. To both our work. I fear Mapplethorpe doesn’t understand the delicate balance needed to keep an Omega subject alive and functioning.”

McBride rubbed the bridge of his nose. “During my phone conversation with him, Mapplethorpe did happen to suggest that we might want to acquire the child ourselves.”

“I suspected he would try something like that.”

Behind Yuri, the door to the outer office opened. He heard Dr. Chen greet someone, stiff and formal.

Yuri swung around, shocked to see the subject of their discussion appear at the door. Mapplethorpe’s sagging features looked even more dour than usual. A chill of misgiving spiked through Yuri.

McBride stood. “John, we were just talking about you. Did your team have any luck acquiring the augmented skull?”

“No. We’ve scoured both museums.”

“Odd,” McBride said with a worried frown. “And what word on the girl?”

“We have helicopters sweeping the entire city grid, section by section, radiating out from the zoo. Still no hits on the tracking device.”

Yuri fixed upon this last bit of information. “Tracking…what tracking device?”

McBride stepped around the desk. He held out a closed fist toward Yuri—then opened his fingers and exposed a tiny object resting on his palm.

Barely larger than the head of a pin.

Yuri had to lean closer to even see it.

“Wonders of nanotechnology,” McBride said. “A passive microtransmitter with burst-pulse attenuator, all housed in a sterile polymer sleeve. While on my last visit to the Warren, I had all the children injected with them.”

Yuri knew nothing about such implantations; then again, he wasn’t kept abreast of everything. “Did Savina approve such trackers?”

He glanced up to see McBride lift one eyebrow at him. Surely you’re smarter than that, Dr. Raev, he seemed to imply.

Yuri realized what the American was insinuating. Savina knew nothing about the matter. It was McBride who had injected the children—in secret, without anyone’s knowledge. He’d had plenty of access to the children, but always while being monitored. Yuri studied the size of the microtransmitter. It was small enough to have been delivered in a hundred different ways.

Why would McBride—?

Yuri’s mind quickly cascaded through the possibilities, implications, and consequences. McBride must have placed trackers in all the children. Once he had the children implanted, all he had to do was set up the proper scenario that would require one or more of the children to leave the nest.

Yuri pictured Archibald Polk’s face. The realization struck him like a blow to the solar plexus.

“It was a ruse all along,” Yuri gasped out. “Dr. Polk’s escape…”

McBride smiled his agreement. “Very good.”

Mapplethorpe’s shadow fell upon him like a physical weight.

Yuri had been played the fool. He glared over at McBride. “You were at the Warren when Archibald escaped. You helped him escape.”

A nod. “We needed some way to lure one of your Omega subjects out into the open.”

“You used Dr. Polk like bait. Your own friend and colleague.”

“A necessity, I’m afraid.”

“Did he…did Archibald know he was being used?”

McBride sighed with a tired ache in his voice. “I think he might have suspected…though he didn’t have much choice. Die or run the gauntlet. Sometimes you have to be a patriot whether you want to or not. And I must say he did well. He almost crossed the goal line.”

“All this, to kidnap one child?”

McBride rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We suspected you Russians were hiding something, yes?”

Yuri kept his face passive. McBride was right, but he had no idea of the breadth of what was hidden.

“We will use this child,” he continued, “to start our own program here in the United States. To study in greater detail what you’ve done to the child. Despite our repeated inquiries, your group has not been forthcoming with a full account. You’ve been holding back key data from the start.”

And they had—not just data, but also future plans.

Yuri asked out loud, “What about Sasha’s medications?”

“We’ll manage. With your cooperation.”

Yuri shook his head. “Never.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

A flick of McBride’s eye drew Yuri’s attention over his shoulder.

Mapplethorpe held a gun in his hand.

He fired at point-blank range.

9:45 P.M.

Gray was not one to stomach coincidences. Two scientists on the same project go missing at the same time—then one turns up in Washington, irradiated and on death’s door.

Gray massaged an ache behind his temples. “Elizabeth, all this has to somehow tie back to your father’s original research.”

Painter nodded. “But the question is how? If we knew more details…perhaps something not in your father’s records.”

The question hung in the air.

Elizabeth glanced down to her lap. Her hands were clutched tightly together. She seemed to finally note the tension there and unlatched her fingers, stretching them a bit.

She mumbled dully. “I don’t know. These last years…we weren’t talking much. He wasn’t happy I was going into anthropology. He wanted me to follow in his…” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

Gray reached out, poured a mug of hot coffee, and passed it to her. She accepted it with a nod. She didn’t drink it, just held it between her palms, warming them.

“Your father must not have been too unhappy with your career choice,” Gray offered. “He obtained that research position for you with the museum in Greece.”

She shook her head. “His assistance wasn’t as altruistic as it sounds. My father had always been interested in the Delphic Oracle. Such prophetic women tied into his studies about intuition and instinct. My father came to believe there was something inherent in these women, something they shared. A genetic commonality. Or a shared neurological abnormality. So you see, my father got me that position in Delphi only so I could help with his research.”

“But what sort of research was he doing exactly?” Gray said, encouraging her. “Anything you know might help.”

She sighed. “I can tell you what started my father’s obsession with intuition and instinct.” She glanced between them. “Do either of you know of the earliest experiments the Russians did involving intuition?”

They shook their heads.

“It was a horrible experiment, but it meshed with my father’s own line of neurophysiology. A couple decades ago, the Russians separated a mother cat from her kittens. They then took the litter down in a submarine. While monitoring the mother cat’s vital signs, the Russian submariners killed one of her kittens. At the exact moment this happened, the mother’s heart rate spiked, and her brain activity registered severe pain. The cat became agitated and confused. They repeated it with the other kittens over the next few days. Each time with exactly the same results. Though separated by distance, the mother seemed to sense the death of her kittens.”

“A form of maternal instinct,” Gray said.

Elizabeth nodded. “Or intuition. Either way, to my father, this was verifiable proof of some biological connection. He focused his research to seek a neurological basis for this strange phenomenon. Eventually he teamed up with the professor in India, who was studying similar abilities among the yogis and mystics of that country.”

“What abilities?” Painter asked.

Elizabeth took a sip of the hot coffee. She shook her head slightly. “My father began reading up on anecdotal stories of people with special mental talents. He weeded out crackpots and charlatans and sought out cases with some measure of verifiable proof, those rare cases substantiated by real scientists. Like by Albert Einstein.”

Gray did not mask his surprise. “Einstein?”

A nod. “At the turn of the century, an Indian woman named Shakuntala was brought to universities around the world to demonstrate her strange abilities. She had no more than the equivalent of a high school education, but she had an inexplicable skill with mathematics. Doing massive calculations in her head.”

“Some form of savant talent?” Painter asked.

“More than that, actually. With chalk in hand, the woman would begin writing the answer to a question before it was even voiced. Even Einstein bore witness to her skill. He posed to her a question that took him three months to solve, involving an intricate number of steps. Again before he could finish even asking the question, she was chalking out the answer, a solution that covered the width of the blackboard. He asked her how she was able to do that, but she didn’t know, claiming that figures just started to appear before her eyes and she simply wrote them down.”

Elizabeth stared over at them, plainly expecting disbelief. But Gray simply nodded for her to continue. His acquiescence seemed to irritate her, as if Gray dismissing such stories would somehow vindicate something inside her.

“There were other cases, too,” she continued. “Again in India. A boy who pulled a rickshaw in Madras. He could answer mathematical questions without even hearing the question. His explanation was that he would be overcome with a sense of anxiety when someone with a mathematical question was near him. And the answer would appear lined up in his head ‘like soldiers.’ He was eventually taken to Oxford, where he was tested. To prove his skill, he answered mathematical questions that were unsolvable at the time. Oxford recorded his results. Decades later, when higher levels of mathematics were developed, his answers were proven correct. But by that time, the boy had died of old age.”

Elizabeth set down her mug of coffee. “As astounding as these cases were, they also frustrated my father to no end. He needed living test subjects. So, as he continued to collate anecdotal evidence, he found many of the most intriguing cases clustered in India. Among their yogis and mystics. At the time, other scientists were already discovering the physiological basis for many of the yogis’ amazing skills. Like withstanding extreme cold for days by adjusting the flow of blood to their limbs and skin. Or fasting for months by lowering their basal metabolic rate.”

Gray nodded. He had studied many of such yogis’ teachings. It all came down to a matter of mental control, of tapping into bodily functions that were considered to be involuntary.

“My father immersed himself in Indian history, language, even with the ancient Vedic texts of prophecy. He sought out skilled yogis and began to test them: blood tests, electroencephalograms, brain mapping, even taking DNA tests to track the lineage of the individuals with the most talent. Ultimately he sought to scientifically prove that there was an organic basis in the brain for what the Russians had demonstrated with the mother cat.”

Painter sank back into the sofa. “It’s no wonder he was tapped for the Stanford project. His research certainly dovetailed with their objective.”

“But why would my father be murdered over this? It’s been years.” Her eyes met Gray’s. “And what does that strange skull have to do with any of this?”

“We don’t know yet,” Painter answered, “but by morning, we should know more about the skull.”

Gray hoped he was right. A team of experts had been called into Sigma to examine the strange object. It was with some reluctance that Gray allowed the skull to be couriered over to central command. Sensing it was the key to the mystery, he hated to have it out of his sight.

A knock at the door ended further discussion.

Painter craned around; Kowalski stood up, one of his shoes in hand.

Gray climbed to his feet, too.

Two plainclothed guards had been posted outside the house. If there was any problem, they would have radioed. Still, Gray unsnapped his holster and slipped out his semiautomatic pistol. Outfitted with radios, why would one of the guards be knocking?

He waved the others back and approached the front entry. He kept to the side and crossed to a small video monitor split into four views, each a live feed from exterior cameras. The upper left featured a view of the porch.

Two figures stood there, a few steps from the door.

A wiry man in a red Windbreaker held the hand of a small child. A girl. She fidgeted with a ribbon in her hair. Gray read no overt threat in the man’s manner. In his other hand was a thick sheet of paper. Maybe an envelope. The figure bent down to the bottom of the door.

Gray tensed, but it was just a sheet of yellow paper. The man slid it under the door. The sheet skittered across the waxed wooden floor of the entrance hall. It sailed to Gray’s toes.

He stared down at a child’s scrawl in black crayon. In crude but deliberate strokes, it depicted the main room of the safe house. Fireplace, chairs, sofa. Exactly as the room was laid out. Four shapes were drawn there, too. Two sat on the sofa, one on a chair. A larger figure leaned by the hearth with a shoe in his hand and had to be Kowalski.

It was a child’s picture of their room.

Gray stared back at the video monitor.

Movement drew his attention to the other feeds from the three exterior cameras. Men stepped into view, also in Windbreakers. Gray watched one guard, then the other appear, held at gunpoint.

Kowalski stepped to Gray’s side, having crossed silently on his stocking feet. He also studied the screen, then sighed.

“Great,” Kowalski commented. “What do you all do? Post the addresses for your hideaways on the Internet?”

Outside, the guards were forced to their knees.

The house was surrounded.

They were trapped.

On the other side of the world, the man named Monk sought his own path to freedom.

As the three children stood guard at his hospital room door, Monk struggled into a pair of thick denim coveralls, dark blue to match the long-sleeved shirt he wore. It was difficult with only one hand. All that remained on the chair were a black cable-knit wool cap and a pair of thick socks. He tugged the cap over his shaved head and pushed into the heavy socks, then into boots that were a bit snug, but the leather was worn and broken in.

The privacy allowed Monk to gather his wits about him, though it had done little to fill in the blanks of his life. He still couldn’t remember anything beyond waking up here. But at least the exertion of dressing helped steady his feet.

He joined the oldest of the boys, Konstantin, at the door, which was steel and had a locking bar on the outside. The stoutness of the door confirmed he’d been a prisoner and that this was an escape.

The youngest of the trio, Pyotr, took Monk’s hand and tugged him down the hall, away from the glow of a nurse’s station. He remembered the boy’s earlier plea.

Save us.

Monk didn’t understand. From what? The girl, who he had learned was named Kiska, led the way to a back stairwell, lit by a red neon sign. Passing under it to the stairs, Monk stared up at the sign’s lettering.

Cyrillic.

He had to be in Russia. Despite his lack of memory, he knew he didn’t belong here. His thoughts were in English. Without a British accent. That meant he had to be American, didn’t it? If he could recognize all that, why couldn’t he—

A cascade of images suddenly blinded him, frozen snapshots of another life, popping like camera flashes in his head—

…a smile…a kitchen with someone’s back turned to him…the steel head of a sharp ax flashing across blue sky…lights rising from deep in dark water…

Then it was gone.

His head pounded. He tried to catch himself on the stair railing and instinctively grabbed out with his stumped arm. His scarred forearm slid along the railing. He barely caught his balance. He stared down at his stump and recalled one of the flashes of memory.

…the steel head of an ax flashing across blue sky.

Was that how it had happened?

Ahead, the children rushed down the stairs. Except for the youngest boy. Pyotr still held his one good hand. He stared up at Monk with eyes so blue they were almost white. Tiny fingers squeezed his own, reassuring. A gentle tug urged him onward.

He stumbled after the others.

They encountered no one on the stairs and exited out a back doorway and into a moonless, overcast night. The air had a chill to it and hung still and damp. Monk took in deep breaths, slowing his hammering heart.

The massive hum of a generator filled the space. Monk studied the size and breadth of the hospital, sprawling out in low wings and encompassing two five-story towers.

“Come. This way,” Konstantin said, taking the lead now.

They hurried down a dark cobblestone alleyway between the hospital and a wall that climbed two stories on their left. Monk looked up, trying to get his bearings. A few lamps glowed beyond the wall, highlighting the tile roofs of hidden buildings. They reached a corner and slipped behind the walled enclosure. The ground became raw rock, slippery with dew. There were no lights here on the back side. All Monk could make out was the wall they followed, built of concrete blocks. His palm ran along it as they ran. From the rough mortaring and uneven lay of the bricks, it must have been hastily constructed.

Monk heard an eerie yowl echoing over the wall. This was followed by muffled barks and stifled sharper cries.

His feet slowed. Animals. Was this some form of zoo?

As if the tall boy ahead had read his thoughts, Konstantin glanced back and mouthed the word menagerie and waved him onward.

Menagerie?

They reached the far corner, and the path sloped steeply downward from there. From the vantage of their height, Monk stared across a bowled valley and a picturesque village of cobbled lanes and cottages with peaked roofs and flower boxes. Ornate black streetlamps flickered with gas flames. A three-story school filled one corner of the village, surrounded by ball fields and an open amphitheater. The small village clustered around a central square, where a tall fountain’s spray danced and glittered.

On the far side of the village rose row after row of industrial-looking apartment buildings, each five stories, squared and laid out in a practical grid. Dark and lightless, it had a dilapidated, deserted feeling to it.

Unlike the village below.

People milled in confusion below. Shouts echoed. He saw children gathered in nightclothes, mingling with adults, some similarly attired, woken from their beds. Others wore gray uniforms and stiff-brimmed hats. Flashlights danced through the narrow streets.

Something had roused the place.

He heard names called, some beckoning, some angry.

“Konstantin! Pyotr! Kiska!”

The children.

A flaming red flare arced upward from the town center, lighting up the sleepy little village, laying stark the buildings beyond, dancing fire over the concrete walls and hollow-eyed windows.

Monk’s gaze tracked the flare as it reached its zenith, popped out a tiny parachute, and floated downward.

Monk’s attention remained above.

The sky…it wasn’t just moonless.

It wasn’t there at all.

The ruddy glow of the flare revealed a massive dome of rock, stretching overhead in all directions, swallowing up the entire place. Monk gaped, stumbling around in a stunned circle.

They hadn’t made it outside.

They were inside a giant cavern.

Possibly man-made from the blasted look of the roof and walls.

He stared down at the perfect little village, preserved in the cavern like a ship in a bottle. But there was no time for further sightseeing.

Konstantin tugged him down behind a limestone outcropping. A trio of jeeps quietly hummed up a steep road toward them, passed them, and headed toward the hospital complex. The vehicles appeared to be electric-powered and were manned by men in uniforms, bearing guns.

Not good.

Once the jeeps were out of sight, Konstantin pointed away from the village, toward the darkness of the deeper cavern. They traversed the rocky landscape and came upon a thin path, seldom used from the looks of it.

They skirted the subterranean village, sticking to the upper slopes of the cavern. Monk noted a yawning tunnel on the far side, lit by electric lights, sealed by giant metal doors wide enough that two cement trucks could have entered, side by side. It marked a roadway that exited the cavern.

But the children led him in the opposite direction.

Where were they taking him?

Behind, a loud alarm erupted, deafening as an air raid siren in the enclosed space. All four of them turned. A red light flashed and whirled atop the hospital complex.

The villagers had come to realize another truth.

It wasn’t just the children who had gone missing.

Monk attempted to herd the kids down the path, but the loud noise had incapacitated them. They covered their ears and squeezed their eyes shut. Kiska looked sick to her stomach. Konstantin was on his knees, rocking. Pyotr hugged tight to Monk.

Hypersensitive.

Still, Monk urged them onward, carrying Pyotr, half dragging Kiska.

Monk glanced back toward the flashing siren. He may have lost his memory—or more precisely, had it forcibly extracted—but he knew one thing for dead certain.

He would lose much more than his memory if caught again.

And he feared the children would suffer even worse.

They had to keep going—but to where?

Chapter 6

September 6, 5:22 A.M.
Kiev, Ukraine

Nicolas Solokov waited for the cameras to be set up. He had already been prepped and still wore a collar of tissue paper tucked into his white starched shirt to keep the makeup’s cake from staining his shirt and midnight blue suit. He had retreated for a private moment of introspection into one of the back hospital wards. The international news crews were still preparing for the morning broadcast out on the steps of the orphanage.

In the back ward of the Kiev Children’s Home, sunlight streamed through high windows. A single nurse moved quietly among the beds. Here the worst cases were hidden away: a two-year-old girl with an inoperable thyroid tumor in her throat, a ten-year-old boy with a swollen head from hydrocephalus, another younger boy whose eyes were dulled by severe mental retardation. This last boy was strapped down, all four limbs.

The nurse, a squarish Ukrainian matron in a blue smock, noted his attention.

“So he doesn’t hurt himself, Senator,” she explained, her eyes exhausted from seeing too much suffering.

But there had been worse cases. In 1993, a baby had been born in Moldova with two heads, two hearts, two spinal cords, but only one set of limbs. There was another child whose brain was born outside his skull.

All the legacy of Chernobyl.

In spring of 1986, reactor number four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had exploded during the middle of the night. Over the course of ten days, it spewed radiation that was the equivalent of four hundred Hiroshima bombs in a plume that circled the globe. To date, according to the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, over one hundred thousand people had died from radiation exposure and another seven million were exposed, most of them children, leaving an ongoing legacy of cancers and genetic abnormalities.

And now the second wave of the tragedy was beginning, where those who had been exposed at a young age were having children themselves. A 30 percent increase in birth defects had been reported.

For that reason, the volatile and charismatic leader of the lower house of the Russian parliament had come here. Nicolas’s own district of Chelyabinsk lay a thousand miles away, but it had similar concerns. In the Ural Mountains of his district, most of the fuel for Chernobyl had been mined, along with the plutonium for the Soviet weapons program. It remained one of the most radioactive places on the planet.

“They’re ready for you, Senator,” his aide said behind him.

He turned to face her.

Elena Ozerov, a trim raven-haired woman in her early twenties with a smoky complexion, wore a black business suit that hid her small breasts and turned her into something androgynously asexual. She was stern, taciturn, and always at his side. The press referred to her as Nicolas’s Rasputin, which he did not discourage.

It all went along with his political plan to be seen as the bold reformer, while simultaneously harkening back to the former czarist glory of the old Russian Empire. Even his namesake, Nicolas II, the last czar of the Romanov dynasty, had been imprisoned and killed in Yekaterinburg, where Nicolas was born. While the czar had been a failed leader during his life, after his death he had been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. The bishops built the gold-domed Cathedral of the Blood over the home where the family had been murdered. The construction marked a symbolic rebirth of the Romanovs.

Some claimed the forty-one-year-old Senator Nicolas Solokov, with his lankish black hair and curled short beard, was the czar himself reborn.

He encouraged such comparisons.

As Russia sought to rise again on shaky legs—burdened by debt and poverty, rife with graft and corruption—it needed a new leader for this new millennium.

Nicolas intended to be that leader.

And much more.

He allowed Elena to pinch away the ring of tissue paper from around his neck. She looked him up and down, then nodded her approval.

Nicolas stepped toward the lights waiting for him outside.

He pushed through the doors, followed circumspectly by Elena. The podium sat up at the top of the stairs, framed with the name of the orphanage behind him.

He marched to the bristle of microphones at the podium and held an arm high against the barrage of questions. He heard one reporter shout a question about his former ties to the KGB, another about his family’s financial connections to the vast mining operations out in the Ural Mountains. As he rose in power, so did the voices of those who sought to pull him down.

Ignoring the questions, he set his own agenda.

Leaning toward the microphones, he let his voice boom out over the nattering questions. “It is time to shut these doors!” he shouted, pointing back toward the entrance to the orphanage behind him. “The children of the Ukraine, of Belarus, of all of Mother Russia, have suffered from the sins of our past. Never again!”

Nicolas let his anger ring out. He knew how it looked on camera. The hard face of reform and outrage. He continued his impassioned plea for a new vision of Russia, a call for action, a call to look forward while not forgetting the past.

“Two days from now, the number four reactor at Chernobyl will be sealed under a new steel dome. The new Sarcophagus will mark the end of a tragedy and be forever a memorial to all the men and women who gave their lives to protect not only our Motherland, but also the world. Firemen who stood firm with their hoses while radiation burned away their futures. Pilots who risked the toxic plume to haul in concrete and supplies. Miners who came from across the country to help build the first shield to entomb the reactor. These glorious men and women, fierce with nationalistic pride, are the true heart of Russia! Let us never forget them, nor their sacrifice!”

The crowd behind the reporters had grown as Nicolas spoke. He was heartened by the cheers and claps as he paused.

This was the first of many speeches he would be giving, leading up to the ceremony at Chernobyl itself, where the new Sarcophagus would be rolled over the toxic core of the dead reactor. The original concrete shield was already crumbling, meant only as a short-term fix, and that was twenty years ago. The new Sarcophagus weighed eighteen thousand tons and stood half as tall as the Eiffel Tower. It was the largest movable structure on the planet.

Other politicians were already capitalizing on the event with similar events and speeches. But Nicolas had been the loudest and most vocal, a champion for nuclear reform, for cleaning up the radiological hotbeds around the country. Many sought to stifle his rhetoric due to the extreme cost. Members of his own parliament ridiculed and lambasted him in the press.

But Nicolas knew he was right.

As they all would see one day.

“And mark my words!” he continued. “While we put an end to one chapter of our history, I fear we’ve only put our finger in a hole in the dike. Our nuclear past is not done with us yet…nor the world. When such a time comes, I hope we all prove to have the same stout hearts as those brave men and women who gave up their futures on that tragic day. So let us not squander the gift they’ve given us. Let us bring about a new Renaissance! From fire, a new world can be born.”

He knew his eyes glinted as he spoke these last words. It was the slogan of his reform.

A new Renaissance.

A Russian Renaissance.

All it needed was a little push in the right direction.

Elena leaned toward him, touched his elbow, wanting a word. He tilted toward her as the crack of a rifle blasted from the park across the street. From the corner of his eye, he caught the flash of muzzle fire a fraction of a second before something ripped past his ear.

Sniper.

Assassin.

Elena pulled him down behind the podium as cries and screams erupted from the crowd. Chaos ruled for a breath. Nicolas used the moment to brush his lips across Elena’s. His hand combed through her long hair; one finger traced the curve of cold surgical steel that hugged the back of her ear.

He whispered into their kiss.

“That went well.”

10:25 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter joined Gray near the front entry and stared at the video feed. He studied the guards held at gunpoint.

The shadowy man on the stoop called through the door, as if sensing their presence. “We mean no harm,” he said, his accent sharp, marking him as Eastern European.

Painter stared at the stranger on the screen. Then to the girl who stood beside him, holding the stranger’s hand. She was staring straight into the hidden camera.

The man called again. “We are allies of Archibald Polk!” He sounded unsure of himself, as if he didn’t know if those in the house would know what that meant. “We don’t have much time!”

Elizabeth hovered behind Painter. They shared a look. If there were to be any answers about the fate of her father, a risk had to be taken. But not too large of a risk. Painter hit the intercom button and spoke into it.

“If you are allies, then you’ll free our men and drop your weapons.”

The man on the porch shook his head. “Not until you prove you can be trusted. We have risked much to bring the girl here. Exposed ourselves.”

Painter glanced to Gray. He shrugged.

“We’ll let you inside,” Painter said. “But only you and the girl.”

“And I will keep your men out here to ensure our safety.”

Kowalski grumbled next to them. “One big happy family.”

Painter motioned Gray to take Elizabeth around the corner.

Painter kept his body to the side of the door. Kowalski flanked the other side, standing in his stockings. The large man raised his only weapon: the shoe in his hand.

That would have to do.

Painter undid the bolt and cracked the door open. The stranger lifted his palm to show it was empty. The girl held his other hand. She appeared no older than ten, dark-haired in a checkered gray-and-black dress. The man had an olive complexion with a heavy five-o’clock shadow. Maybe Egyptian or Arabic. His eyes, so brown they appeared black in the porch light, smoldered with wary threat. He wore jeans and a dark crimson Windbreaker.

The stranger turned his head, but his gaze never wavered from the open doorway. He barked to his men. Painter didn’t understand the language, but from the tones it sounded like a command to stay alert.

“He’s a Gypsy,” Kowalski mumbled.

Painter glanced to the large man.

“Had a family down the street from mine.” Kowalski thumbed at the stranger. “That was Romani he was speaking.”

“He is right,” the stranger said. “My name is Luca Hearn.”

Painter pulled the doorway wider and motioned the man inside.

The stranger stepped across the threshold cautiously, but he nodded a greeting to Painter and Kowalski. “Sastimos.”

“Nais tuke,” Kowalski answered. “But just so you know, that’s about all the Romani language I remember.”

Painter led Luca and the child back to the main living room. She moved with a slight tremble to her limbs. Her face gleamed with a feverish cast to it.

Luca noted Gray to the side, holding a pistol.

Painter waved for Gray to holster the weapon. He sensed no direct threat from the man. Only an unwavering caution.

Elizabeth stepped forward. “You mentioned my father.”

Luca crinkled his brow, not understanding.

Painter explained, “She is Archibald Polk’s daughter.”

His eyes widened. He bowed his head in her direction. “I am sorry for your loss. He was a great man.”

“What do you know about my father?” she asked. “Who is this girl?”

The child pulled free of the man’s hand and crossed to the table. She sat down on her knees next to it and rocked back and forth.

“The girl?” Luca said. “I don’t know. A mystery. I received a message from your father. A frantic voice mail. It was chaotic, spoken in a rush. He ordered us to buy a dozen Cobra Marine receivers from Radio Shack and to tune them to a certain wavelength. He sounded crazy, babbling off numbers. He wanted us to stake out the national Mall. To watch for a package that set off the receivers.”

“Package?” Painter asked.

Luca glanced down to the child. “Her.”

“The girl?” Elizabeth asked, shocked. “Why?”

Luca shook his head. “We owed your father. We did as he asked. We were even on the Mall when he was shot, though we didn’t know it was your father until later. But we did pick up the trail of the child.”

Painter studied the girl. There must be a bug, a microtransmitter somewhere on her person.

“We followed her to the zoo, where we were able to collect her without anyone knowing.”

“You kidnapped her?” Painter asked.

He shrugged. “The last words on the message were to steal the package and bring it to something or someone named Sigma.”

His words jolted Painter.

“The message cut off abruptly,” the Gypsy said, “with no further direction or explanation. Once we had the girl, we had to move fast. We feared others would come looking for her. Someone able to track her like we did. Especially with an Amber Alert raised across the district. But we had no idea what the professor meant by Sigma. As we raced around, trying to figure it out, the girl began to draw furiously.”

He pointed to the child, who had gained her feet and walked to a blank wall. She bore a piece of charcoal from the fireplace in her fingers and drew on the wall in a haphazard manner, jerkily, starting in one place, then moving to another.

“She wouldn’t stop,” Luca continued. “She drew a silhouette of a park with trees and a picture of Rock Creek bridge.” He nodded out the window. “Then after that, a house, set in the same woods. We had to circle the entire park, looking for it, believing it was important. By the time we found this place, she had drawn the picture that I slid under the door.”

Luca stared at them. “A picture of all of you. Friends and family of Dr. Polk. So I must ask you, do you know this Sigma?”

Painter slipped out a glossy black identification card. It had his photograph fixed with the presidential seal. Etched into its surface was a holographic Greek letter.

Luca examined it, angling it to study the holograph. His eyes widened as he recognized it.

While they had talked, Gray had crossed to the girl. He sat on his haunches, studying the girl’s work. He rubbed his chin. Something had drawn his attention. Gray lifted a finger, half hidden between his knees, like a catcher signaling a pitcher. He pointed toward the girl.

Her face shone brighter. Her head lolled slightly to one side. Her eyes were open, but they were not following the path of her scrabbling piece of charcoal. As disturbing as her manner was, it was not what Gray had indicated.

Painter had noted it, too. Her hair, damp with fever sweat, had parted slightly behind her ear. A glint of steel shone through. The shape was unmistakably the same as the device attached to the strange skull.

Only here it was on a living subject.

What had Archibald delivered to them?

As Painter’s mind spun on possibilities, Elizabeth hung farther back in the room. She pointed toward the wall. “Come see this,” she said, her voice quavering with an edge of fear.

Painter retreated to her side. She pointed to the artwork forming on the wall. From this far away, what looked like mindless scribbles had begun to take form. He watched the transformation unfold over the course of four long silent minutes.

Elizabeth stuttered her amazement. “That’s…that’s…”

“…the Taj Mahal,” Painter finished.

In the silent wonder that followed, a distant sound reached them.

—whump, whump—

A helicopter, flying low, coming closer.

Gray straightened and reached for the girl. “Someone’s found us!”

6:02 A.M.
Kiev, Ukraine

Nicolas rolled off of Elena and onto his back.

The hotel room fan cooled his sweating body. His lower back ached and his shoulders bore deep scratches that still burned. Elena rolled smoothly to her feet, with an easy swing of her hair, tangled to midback. The curving rise and fall of her buttocks as she strode toward the shower came close to arousing him again. He stirred, but he knew he had another interview in a half hour.

News of the failed assassination had already spread far and wide. He would be on every international newscast. He’d already learned that the sniper, shot by the police, had died before reaching the hospital.

With the death, no one would suspect that it had all been preplanned. Even the sniper—a mine worker from Polevskoy whose brother had been killed in an industrial accident last year—never knew how artfully he’d been manipulated into the assassination scheme.

It had all unfolded with technical precision. Elena had timed her touch perfectly. A skill of hers. When primed, she could calculate probabilities to the nth degree. Her statistical analyses of business spreadsheets rivaled the world’s best economists. And having studied the technical specifications on most pistols and light arms, she had only to see how a weapon was held and pointed to calculate its precise trajectory.

Trusting this, he had put his life in her hands this morning.

And survived.

At that moment, behind the podium, he’d never felt such a total lack of control, his very survival at the mercy of another. After a lifetime of control, to release that grip even for a moment had quickened his pulse. Afterward, he could not return to the hotel fast enough.

Elena stepped wet from her shower and leaned naked in the doorway. The lust in her eyes slowly died—trailing the last spark of erotic stimulation from her augment’s neural array. The fiery lioness was becoming a sleepy kitten. Still, Nicolas studied that last ember of fire—an arousing blend of need and hatred—but even that would fade to a simple cold obedience.

Such stimulation of her implant was necessary—not only to make the coupling intense, but also to trigger the proper physiological response to increase the chance of fertilization. Nicolas had read the studies. And his mother wanted children from him, even approved of the union of Nicolas and Elena. It was a perfect match: his will and her cold calculation.

Nicolas had done his best to make his mother happy this morning.

And he had the bruises and scratches to prove it.

However, his mother might not have approved of him allowing Elena to tie him to the bedposts and whip his thighs with a scrub brush. But as his mother always told him when he was growing up:

The ends always justifies the means.

Ever practical, his mother.

The phone rang at his bedside table. Elena strode over, answered it, then held the receiver out for him.

“General-Major Savina Martov,” Elena said formally, gone cold again. “For the senator.”

He took the receiver with a sigh. As usual, the woman’s timing was impeccable. She must have heard about the failed assassination attempt. She would want a full debriefing and must have wondered why he hadn’t already reported in. The schedule in the next days would tighten to an unbreakable knot—at both their ends—leading up to the formal sealing of Chernobyl. Nothing could go wrong.

Nicolas shifted his weight off his bruised buttock with a wince.

The caller spoke before he could. “We have a problem, Nicolas.”

He sighed. “What is it, Mother?”

10:50 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Gray cradled the girl in his arms and hurried across the front yard. The crisp September night contrasted with the feverish heat of the child. He felt the burn of her skin through his shirt. Her fever had spiked while laboring on her artwork. She had collapsed when Gray had pulled the charcoal from her fingers. She was conscious, but her eyes stared blankly, and her limbs were oddly stiff and wooden, as if he were carrying a life-size doll. Her waxy features heightened the comparison.

Gray touched her face, noting the fine delicacy of her tiny eyelashes.

Who could do this to a child?

They had to get her to safety.

Out in the yard, Gray searched the skies. A single black helicopter—military design—swept low down the street. Another idled higher at the other end of the block. And a third circled the park behind them.

Triangulating in on their position.

Their sedan still stood in the driveway. Luca and his men had three identical Ford SUVs parked down the street. The Gypsy clan leader had already gathered his men. He barked orders in Romani and pointed his arms out in various directions, instructing them to split up. Three men took off on foot toward the park, where they would divide again. Another two ran across the street and disappeared between two houses. A dog barked at their passage.

Ahead, Kowalski marched with Elizabeth toward the Lincoln Town Car in the driveway. She had her cell phone to her ear.

Painter headed toward a small car parked at the curb, a Toyota Yaris that belonged to one of the security guards. Gray followed him. The guard was already behind the wheel after being freed by Luca’s men.

Painter opened the backseat and turned to Gray and held out his arms. Gray passed him the child.

“She’s burning up,” Gray said.

He nodded. “Once safe, we’ll get her medical attention. I’ve already called Kat and Lisa to report to command.”

Lisa was Dr. Lisa Cummings, an experienced medical doctor with a PhD in physiology. She was also the director’s girlfriend. Captain Kat Bryant was Sigma’s expert in intelligence services and coordination. She would oversee the field operation.

“But first,” Painter said, his eyes on the skies as he ducked into the backseat with the child, “we have to break this cordon.”

Off to the side, one of the Ford SUVs shot straight down the street with its headlights off; the other swung sharply around and flew in the opposite direction, zipping past Painter’s idling Toyota.

“Let’s hope this works,” Gray said.

Before leaving, Painter had Luca bring in one of the Cobra receivers that they’d used to track the girl at the national Mall. As the director had hoped, the devices were actually transceivers—capable of both receiving and transmitting. Painter had showed Luca how to switch the radios from receiving a specific signal to broadcasting it. Luca had all his men do the same. They were now scattering in all directions, transmitting the girl’s signature signal, creating a dozen different trails to follow—and most likely broadcasting louder than the girl’s small microtransmitter. Under the cover of such confusion, Painter hoped to escape with the girl to the subterranean bunkers of Sigma’s central command. There, he could isolate her signal and protect her.

Gray stepped in the other direction, toward the waiting Town Car. Kowalski already was revving the engine, impatient. They were headed for Reagan International Airport. Gray pictured the charcoal sketch of the Taj Mahal. The famous mausoleum was located in India, the very country where Dr. Polk had last been seen. Even before the girl’s arrival, Gray had decided to extend the investigation to India, to follow Dr. Polk’s trail out there. The mysterious drawing only added to his determination.

In India, there remained one person who could cast a better light on Archibald Polk’s research and his whereabouts prior to his disappearance.

Elizabeth stood by the open door, studying the skies nervously. She clicked her cell phone closed as Gray reached her side.

“I was able to reach Dr. Masterson,” she said. “My father’s colleague at the university of Mumbai. But he wasn’t in Mumbai. He was in Agra.”

“Agra?” Gray asked.

“The city in India where the Taj Mahal is located. He was there when I called. At the site.”

Gray stared over at the Toyota as it swung from the curb and glided down the streets. What is going on?

Overhead, the helicopters wavered. The birds began to drift in opposite directions, drawn off by decoys.

Gray tried one last time. “Elizabeth, you would be safer staying here.”

“No, I’m coming with you. As you’ll find out, Dr. Masterson is not the most forthcoming. But he knows me. He’s expecting me. To get the professor’s cooperation, I’ll need to be there.”

Elizabeth’s gaze met Gray’s. He read a mix of emotions in her face: determination, fear, and a bone-deep grief.

“He was my father,” she said. “I have to go.”

“And besides,” Kowalski called over from the driver’s side of the car. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

A shadow of a smile dimmed the raw edge of her emotion. “That’s not a good thing, is it?” she mouthed to Gray.

“Not by a long shot.”

He waved her into the car. He didn’t argue too firmly against her coming. He suspected they would need her expertise before this was all over. Her father had specifically gone to her temporary office at the Museum of Natural History. He had gotten her that position at the Greek museum. Somehow all this tied back to Delphi—but how?

Luca had joined them by now. He had heard the last part of the conversation. “I am coming, too.”

Gray nodded. Painter had already made that arrangement, to buy Luca’s cooperation with the girl’s escape. Which was fine with Gray. He still had a slew of questions for the man, mostly concerning his relationship with Dr. Polk. The Gypsy leader also seemed dead determined about something. Gray saw it in the shadows behind his dark eyes.

With the matter settled, Gray slid into the front passenger seat. Luca and Elizabeth piled into the back.

“Hang tight!” Kowalski called to them as he hauled the car into reverse, pounded the gas, and sent them squealing out of the driveway and into the street.

Overhead, the thump-thump of the helicopters receded into the night.

Gray’s thoughts drifted to questions about the girl.

Who is she? Where did she come from?

Monk followed the three children. They were trailed by another who joined them at the lower hatch.

But she was not a child.

Monk felt those dark eyes on his back.

As a group, they climbed a spiral staircase drilled through raw limestone. The rock walls dripped with water, making the steps slippery. The stairway was narrow, utilitarian, plainly a service stair. It had proved to be a long climb. Monk half carried Pyotr now.

Earlier, while the siren blared, the kids had led Monk down a path that skirted the cavern and ended up at a small hatchway. The door opened into the stairway they were now climbing. Down below, Monk had been introduced to the last and strangest member of their party.

Her name was Marta.

“Here!” Konstantin called from ahead, bearing their only flashlight. He had reached the top of the stairs. Monk gathered the other two children and joined him. The older boy folded his lanky form and crouched beside a pile of packed gear. Ahead, a short tunnel ended at another hatch.

Konstantin pushed a pack into Monk’s arms. Monk carried it toward the hatch and placed his palm on the door. It felt warm.

He turned as the last member of their party climbed into the tunnel from the stairs. Weighing eighty pounds and stooped to the height of three feet, she knuckled on one arm. Her body was covered in soft dark fur, except for her exposed face, hands, and feet. The fur around her face had gone a silvery gray.

Konstantin claimed the female chimpanzee was over sixty years old.

The reunion between the children and the ape at the lower hatchway had been a warm one. Despite the siren’s blare and the wincing sensitivity of the children, the chimpanzee had taken each child under her arm and given them a reassuring squeeze, motherly, maternal.

Monk had to admit that her presence had helped calm the kids.

Even now, she shuffled among them, leaning, subvocalizing quietly.

The youngest, Pyotr, was the one who got the most attention. The pair seemed to have a strange way of communicating. It wasn’t sign language, more like body language: gentle touches, posturing, long stares into each other’s eyes. The young boy, exhausted by the climb, seemed to gain strength from the elderly ape.

Konstantin crossed to the hatch. He held out a small plastic badge toward Monk and showed him how to attach it to his coverall.

“What is it?” Monk asked.

Konstantin nodded toward the sealed doorway. “Monitoring badge…for radiation levels.”

Monk stared over to the door. Radiation? What lay beyond that door? He remembered the heat he’d felt when he’d laid his palm on the hatch. In his head, he painted a blasted landscape, a terrain turned to ruin and slag.

With everyone ready, Konstantin crossed to the hatch and yanked hard on the lever that secured it. The door cracked and opened.

A blinding blaze of light flooded in, like staring into a fiery blast furnace. Monk shielded his eyes with his forearm. It took him another two breaths to realize he was merely facing a rising sun. He stumbled outside with the children.

The landscape had not been blasted to slag, as he had feared.

If anything, the opposite was true.

The hatch opened out onto a ledge of a heavily wooded slope, thick with birches and alders. Many of the trees had gone fiery with the change of seasons. To one side, a creek tumbled over mossy green rocks. Low mountains stretched off into the distance, dotted by tiny alpine lakes that shone like droplets of silver.

They had climbed out of hell into paradise.

But hell wasn’t done with them yet.

From the tunnel behind them, a strange yowling cry echoed out to them. Monk remembered hearing the same howl coming from the walled complex that neighbored the hospital.

The Menagerie.

A second and third cry answered the first.

He didn’t need Konstantin’s urging to keep moving.

Monk recognized what he was hearing—not from memory, but from that buried part of his brain where instinct of predator and prey were still written.

Another howl echoed.

Louder and closer.

They were being hunted.

Chapter 7

September 6, 4:55 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

She remained a mystery in a very small package.

Painter studied the girl through the window. She had finally fallen asleep. Kat Bryant kept vigil at her bedside, a copy of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham open in her lap. She had read to the girl until the sedatives had relaxed the child enough to sleep.

The child hadn’t said a word since they’d arrived at midnight. Her eyes would track things, plainly registering what was going on around her. But there was little other response. She spent most of her time rocking back and forth, stiffening when touched. They had managed to get her to drink from a juice box and eat two chocolate-chip cookies. They’d also run some initial tests: blood chemistries, a full physical, even an MRI of her entire body. She still ran a low-grade fever, but it wasn’t as elevated as earlier.

During the physical exam, they’d also found the microtransmitter embedded deep in the girl’s upper arm. The chip would require surgery to remove, so they decided to leave it in place. Besides, the signal was insulated here, blocked. There would be no tracking it.

Kat stirred and stood up. The woman was dressed casually, her auburn hair accented against a white cotton broadcloth shirt that was worn loose over tan slacks. She had been called to central command from home to oversee field operations, but with Gray’s team still in the air, she found herself more useful here. Having a young daughter herself, Kat had brought in the copy of Dr. Seuss. Though the child remained unresponsive, she warmed up to Kat. Her rocking slowed.

Painter was happy to see Kat Bryant back at work. After the loss of her husband, Monk, she’d been adrift for many weeks. Yet now she seemed to be recovering, moving forward again.

Stepping out of the room, Kat closed the door softly and joined Painter in the neighboring observation room. High-backed chairs surrounded a conference table.

“She’s asleep.” Kat sank into one of the chairs with a sigh.

“Maybe you should, too. It will be a few more hours until Gray’s plane lands in India.”

She nodded. “I’ll check with the sitter who’s watching Penelope, then crash for a couple of hours.”

The door to the outer hall opened. They both turned to see Lisa Cummings and the center’s pathologist, Malcolm Jennings, enter the room. The two, dressed in matching white laboratory smocks and blue scrubs, were in an animated but whispered conversation. Lisa had her hands shoved in the pockets of her smock, pulling the coat tight to her shoulders, a sign of deep concentration. She had put her long blond hair up into a French braid. The pair had spent the last hour in the MRI suite, going over results.

From their heated, excited chatter—full of medical jargon beyond Painter’s comprehension—they had come to some conclusions, though not necessarily a consensus.

“Neuromodulation of that scale without glial cell support?” Lisa said with a shake of her head. “The stimulation of the nucleus basalis, of course, makes sense.”

“Does it?” Painter asked, drawing their attention.

Lisa seemed to finally see Painter and Kat. Her shoulders relaxed, and her hands left her pockets. A whispery smile feathered her features as her gaze met his. One of her hands trailed across Painter’s shoulders as she passed and took one of the seats.

Malcolm took the last remaining seat. “How’s the child doing?”

“Asleep for the moment,” Kat said.

“So what have we learned?” Painter asked.

“That we’re moving through a landscape both new and old,” Malcolm answered cryptically. He slipped on a pair of glasses, tinged slightly blue for reading computer screens with less eyestrain. He settled them in place and opened a laptop he’d carried under one arm. “We’ve compiled the MRI scans of the child and my analysis of the skull. Both devices are the same, though the child’s is more sophisticated.”

“What are they?” Kat asked.

“For the most part, they’re TMS generators,” Malcolm answered.

“Transcranial magnetic stimulators,” Lisa elaborated, though that didn’t help much.

Painter shared a confused expression with Kat. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he asked. “And use small words.”

Malcolm tapped the side of his head with a pen. “Then we’ll start here. The human brain. Composed of thirty billion neurons. Each neuron communicates to its neighbors via multiple synapses. Creating roughly one million billion synaptic connections. These connections, in turn, create a very large number of neural circuits. And by large, I mean in the order of ten followed by a million zeros.”

“A million zeros?” Painter said.

Malcolm looked over the edge of his glasses at Painter. “To give you some scale. The total number of atoms in the entire universe is only ten followed by eighty zeros.”

At Painter’s shocked reaction, Malcolm nodded. “So there’s a vast amount of computing power locked in our skulls that we’re only beginning to comprehend. We’ve just been scratching the surface.” He pointed toward the window. “Someone out there has been delving much deeper.”

“What do you mean?” Kat asked, her expression showing worry for the girl.

“With our current technology, we’ve been making tentative strides into this new frontier. Like sending probes into space, we’ve been slipping electrodes into brains. All input into the brain is via electrical impulses. We don’t see with our eyes. We see with our brains. It’s why cochlear implants work to return hearing to the deaf. The implant turns sounds into electrical impulses, which are passed to the brain via a microelectrode inserted into the auditory nerve. Over time, the cortex learns to reinterpret this new signal, and like learning a new language, the deaf begin to hear.”

Malcolm waved to his laptop. “The human brain—being electrical, being malleable to new signals—has an innate ability to connect to machines. In some regards, that makes us perfect natural-born cyborgs.”

Painter frowned. “Where are you going with all this?”

Lisa placed a hand atop his. “We’re already there. The division between man and machine is already blurred. We now have microelectrodes so small that they can be inserted into individual neurons. At Brown University in 2006, they inserted a microchip into a paralyzed man’s brain, linked by a hundred of these microelectrodes. Within four days of practicing, the man—through his thoughts alone—could move a computer cursor on a screen, open e-mail, control a television, and move a robotic arm. That’s how far we’ve breeched the frontier.”

Painter glanced to the window. “And someone’s gone farther than that?”

Both Lisa and Malcolm nodded.

“The device?” Painter asked.

“A step above anything we’ve seen. It has nanofilament electrodes so tiny that it’s hard to say where the device ends and the child’s brain begins. But the basic function is well known. From studies done at Harvard University on rats, we know that TMS devices promote the growth of neurons—though, oddly, only in areas involved with learning and memory. We still don’t understand why. But what we do know is that magnetic stimulation can also turn on and off these neurons like a switch. Children are especially pliable in this manner.”

“So if I understand this all correctly, someone has wired such a device to the child, stimulated nerve growth in a specific area, and now controls its functioning like a switch.”

“Generally speaking, yes,” Malcolm said. “They’ve tapped deep into that vast neural network I described. Only with the magnetic-stimulation of new neurons, they’ve expanded that network even farther. And if I’m right, I’d say they’ve focused that expansion in a very narrow area.”

“What makes you say that?”

“There’s a law in neurology. Hebb’s law. That basically states nerves that fire together, wire together. By stimulating one site in the brain, they are reinforcing it harder and harder.”

“But to what end?” Painter asked.

Malcolm shared a worried glance with Lisa. He wanted her to explain.

She sighed. “I spoke to the psychologist, Zach Larson, who examined the girl when she was first brought in. From her nonresponsiveness, repetitive behavior, and sensitivity to stimulation, Zach is certain the girl is autistic. And from the behavior you described at the safe house, probably an autistic savant.”

Painter had read Larson’s report, too. It had been put together quickly, but it had been thorough. He had run a small battery of psychological tests, including a genetic study for some of the typical markers for autism. The last was still pending.

He’d also included fact sheets on the subject of autistic savants, those rare individuals who—though compromised by their disorder—have amazing islands of talent. A skill that is deep and narrow. Painter remembered the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie Rain Man. His ability was to do lightning calculations. But this was only one of the savant talents on Larson’s list. Others included calendar calculations, memorization skills, musical talent, mechanical and spatial skills, exquisite discrimination of smell, taste, or hearing, and also art.

Painter pictured the drawing of the Taj Mahal. It had been sketched in minutes, handsomely drawn to scale, with perfectly balanced perspective. The girl was certainly talented.

But was it more than that?

The last on Larson’s list of savant talents was a rare and controversial report of some autistic savants who displayed extrasensory skills.

Painter could not dismiss that the girl’s drawings had led the Gypsies unerringly to their safe house. He recalled the earlier discussion with Elizabeth, about her father’s work on intuition and instinct, about his connection with a deep-black government project involved in remote viewing.

Lisa continued, “We think the device is meant to stimulate that area of the brain where the savant talent lies. It’s known that most savant talent arises from the right side of the brain, the same side where the device is attached on both the skull and the girl. Even using today’s technology, it would not take much effort to localize the region regulating this talent. And once found, the magnetic stimulation could both amplify that area and control it.”

Painter stood with dawning horror. If Lisa and Malcolm were correct, someone was harnessing this child’s abilities. He crossed toward the window.

Who did this to the girl?

Kat had joined Painter and pointed through the window. “She’s awake.”

And she was drawing again.

The girl had found a notepad and black felt pen on the bedside table. She scratched across it, not quite as frantically as before, but she was still bent with concentration over the page.

Kat headed to the door. Painter followed.

The girl did not acknowledge them, but as they stepped through, both pad and pen dropped to her bedsheet. She went back to rocking.

Kat stared down at the artwork, then fell back a step with a small gasp. Painter understood her reaction. There was no mistaking what was drawn in ink and paper, a portrait.

It was her husband, Monk.

11:04 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains
Russian Federation

Monk helped Pyotr along a fallen log that forded a deep stream, churning over jumbled rocks. Moss grew heavy on the log, along with a few fat white mushrooms. The entire place smelled damp.

Kiska was already on the other side, standing with Marta, holding the old chimpanzee’s paw. Monk wanted to be across the next rise and into the neighboring valley. Hopping off the log, he stared behind him. They were crossing a dense birch forest, whose white-barked trunks looked like dried bone. The green foliage was already flamed in patches.

Monk picked one of the red leaves, rubbing it between his fingers. Still soft, not dried out. Early fall. But the changing leaves promised a cold night among the low mountains here. But at least there should be no snow. He dropped the crushed leaf.

How did he know all this?

He shook his head. Such answers would have to wait. Still, he found it disturbing how quickly he was growing accustomed to the disconnect between his lack of memory and his knowledge of the world. Then again, they were being hunted. They had to move quietly, sound carried far in the mountains. Through whispers and hand signals, they communicated.

Monk searched the far side of the stream. They had been on the run for the past three hours. He had set a hard pace, trying to put as much distance between them and where they’d exited the subterranean world. He didn’t know how long it would take for the hunters to realize the escapees had abandoned the cavern and to pick up their trail out here.

Monk waited at the stream’s edge.

Where was Konstantin?

As if beckoned by his thought, the taller boy came dancing down the far slope, as lithe and firm footed as a young buck. His face, though, was a mask of fear as he ambled, arms out, across the slippery log.

“I did it!” he said. Wheezing heavily, he jumped and landed next to Monk. “I took your hospital nightshirt and dragged it to the stream in the other valley.”

“And you threw it in the water?”

“Past that beaver dam. Like you said.”

Monk nodded. His hospital nightshirt had been soiled with blood and sweat. One of the kids had stolen it from his room after he’d changed. It was smart thinking. If they’d left the shirt, his captors would have known he’d changed.

It also came in handy in laying a false trail. He had further soiled the shirt by wiping sweat from his brow and underarms. He had done the same with the kids and the chimpanzee, too. The riper garment should leave a stronger trail, a false trail. Hopefully the scent would send the hunters searching in the wrong direction.

“Help me with this,” Monk said to Konstantin and leaned down to the log they’d used to cross.

Together, the two got the log rocking, but they still couldn’t dislodge it. Monk then felt a huff at his cheek. He turned to see Marta shouldering into the log. With a single heave, the chimpanzee rolled the fallen log into the stream. She was strong. The log fell with a heavy splash, then bobbed and teetered down the waterway. Monk watched it float away. The more ways they could break their trail, all the better.

Satisfied, Monk headed out.

Konstantin kept up, but Kiska and Pyotr struggled. The way was steep. Monk and Marta both helped the smaller children, hauling them up the harder patches. Finally, they reached the top of the rise. Ahead, more hills spread in all directions, mostly wooded with a few open meadows. Off to the left, not too far away, a wide patch of silver marked a large lake.

Monk stepped in that direction. With a lake like that, there should be people, someone who could help them.

Konstantin grabbed his elbow. “We can’t go that way. Only death lies that way.” His other hand squeezed the badge affixed to his belt, a radiation monitor.

In such verdant surroundings, Monk had forgotten about that danger. He flipped his badge up. Its surface was white, but as the radiation levels rose, it would begin to turn pink, then red, then dark crimson, then black. Sort of like a drugstore pregnancy test—

Photo-flashes of memory cracked across his vision.

—a laughing blue eye, tiny fingernails—

Then nothing again.

His head throbbed. He fingered the tender suture line through his wool cap. Konstantin looked at him with narrow, concerned eyes.

Kiska, who Monk had learned was Konstantin’s sister, hugged her arms around her belly. “I’m hungry,” she whispered, as if fearful of both being heard and of showing weakness.

Konstantin frowned in his sister’s direction, but Monk knew they all should eat to keep their strength up. After their panicked flight, they needed a moment to regroup, to plan some strategy beyond running. Monk stared toward the lake while fingering his badge.

Only death lies that way.

He needed to better understand their situation.

“We’ll find a place to shelter and eat quickly,” Monk said.

He crossed down into the next valley. A series of small ponds cascaded through a set of terraced ledges. The place sparkled with a dozen waterfalls and cataracts. The air smelled loamy and damp. Halfway down, a fern-strewn cliff side had been eroded into a pocket with an overhang. He led the children to it.

They hunkered down and opened packs. Protein bars and bottled water were passed around.

Monk searched his pack. No weapons, but he did find a topographic map. He unfolded it on the ground. The header was in Cyrillic. Konstantin joined him, chewing on a peanut-butter-flavored bar. Monk noted the mountainous landscape was marked with scores of tiny Xs.

“Mines,” Konstantin said. “Uranium mines.” He ran a finger along the Cyrillic header, then waved an arm to encompass the area. “The Southern Ural Mountains. Chelyabinsk district. Center of old weapons factories. Very dangerous.”

The boy tapped all around the map where radiological hazard symbols dotted the terrain. “Many open mines, old radiochemical and plutonium plants. Nuclear waste facilities. All shut down, except for one or two.” He waved to indicate a far distance away.

Monk mumbled with a shake of his head, staring down at all the hazard symbols. “And all I wanted to know was where we were.”

“Very dangerous, da,” Konstantin warned. He pointed an arm in the direction of the large lake, now out of sight. “Lake Karachay. Liquid waste dumping ground for old Mayak atomic complex. You stand one hour by the lake and you will be dead a week later. We must go around.”

Konstantin leaned closer to the map and tapped in the center of a cluster of mines and radiation plants. “We come from here. The Warren. An old underground city—Chelyabinsk 88—where thousands of prisoners were housed who worked the mines. One of many such places.”

Monk pictured the industrial-looking buildings he had seen in the cavern. Obviously someone else had found a new use for the abandoned place.

Konstantin continued, “We must go around Lake Karachay—but not too near.” He glanced up to Monk to make sure he understood. “Which means we must cross the Asanov swamp to reach here.”

The boy held his finger over another mine opening on the far side of the lake.

Monk didn’t understand. Weren’t they seeking to escape, to get to someone who could help them?

“What’s there?” Monk asked, nodding to the mine marker.

“We must stop them.” Konstantin glanced to Pyotr, who cradled with Marta on a bed of moss.

“Stop who?” Monk remembered the young boy’s words to him.

Save us.

Konstantin turned back to Monk. “It is why we brought you here.”

11:30 A.M.

General-Major Savina Martov glowered at the assembled children. They were in the school’s main auditorium. A photograph of the American glowed from a large LCD screen behind her.

“Has anyone seen this man lurking around early this morning? He may have been wearing a hospital gown.”

The children stared blankly at her from banks of wooden seats. They’d all been rousted early from their dormitories. More than sixty children sat in tiers, designated by the color of their shirts. The white-shirted sat at the back, those who carried the genetic markers but showed little talent. The grays sat in the middle, mildly talented, but not remarkable.

Unlike the ten who shared the front seats.

These last wore uniforms with black shirts. Omega class. Those rare few who displayed astounding talents. The dozen best, selected to serve Savina’s son, Nicolas, in the hard times to come, to be his inner council with Savina as its head.

Nicolas was a sore point for Savina, a disappointment. He’d been born a white shirt. A loss of the genetic dice. Savina had impregnated herself via artificial insemination from one of the first generation. She’d been rash and paid dearly for it. She’d acted before they fully understood the genetics. There had been complications during the birth. She could have no other children. But she had developed a new purpose for Nicolas, one that would bring about true and lasting change. It became her life’s work after Nicolas was born.

And they were so close.

She stared at the row of black shirts.

And the two empty seats in the Omega-class section.

One child had vanished last night.

Pyotr.

His sister had vanished at the same time from a zoo in America. Savina still had heard no update on the girl’s status from Yuri. The man had gone strangely silent, not even responding to a transmitted emergency code.

Something was happening.

She needed answers. Her voice grew sharper. “And no one saw Konstantin, Kiska, or Pyotr leaving their dorm rooms? No one!”

Again the blank stares.

Motion at the back of the room drew her eye. A toadish-looking man stepped into the room and nodded to her. Lieutenant Borsakov, her second in command. He was dressed in his usual gray uniform, including a stiff black-brimmed cap. He’d found something.

At last.

She turned to the trio of teachers standing to the side. “Confine them to their dormitories. Under close guard. Until the matter is settled.”

She climbed the stairs and exited the auditorium, drawing Borsakov in her wake. Pock-faced and scarred, he stood only as high as her shoulders, which she preferred. She liked men shorter than herself. But he was bulky with muscle, and sometimes she caught him staring at her with a flicker of hunger. She preferred that, too.

He trailed a step behind her as they crossed through the school to the exit. Once outside, she found two of his men. One had a chained Russian wolf at his side. It growled and rumbled, curling back lips to expose sharp teeth. The guard yanked on the lead, scolding it.

Savina gave the creature a wide berth. A mix of Russian wolfhound and Siberian wolf, its muscular form stood almost to Borsakov’s chest. The beast came from their animal research facility—nicknamed the Menagerie. It was where they experimented with new augments and tested various applications, using all manner of higher mammals: dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, chimps. It also served as a macabre petting zoo for the village. They’d found over the years that the children bonded with the animals and the relationship helped stabilize them psychologically. And maybe the bond wasn’t entirely human-animal, but also augment to augment, a shared commonality.

Even the wolf bore a surgical steel device.

The augment capped the base of the dog’s skull, attached via titanium screws and wired in place. With the touch of a button on the radio-transmitter, they could feed pain or pleasure, enhance aggression or docility, dull senses or stimulate arousal.

“What have you found, Lieutenant?” she asked.

“The children are not in the cavern,” he said.

She stopped and turned.

“We searched the entire village, even the deserted apartment complex, but when we circled wider, we discovered a scent trail along a back wall, behind the animal facility. It led to one of the service hatches to the surface.”

“They went outside?”

“We believe with the American from the hospital. The children’s trail came from the hospital.”

So that at least answered one question. The American hadn’t escaped, then kidnapped the children. It seemed it was the other way around. The children must have helped him escape.

But why?

What was so important about the man?

It was a question that had nagged Savina since the man had first arrived. Two months ago, Russian intelligence had been alerted about a plague ship that had been pirated in the Indonesian seas. Intelligence services around the world were looking for it. She had been tasked to see if her subjects could find it. A test. One she had passed. Primed, the twelve Omegas had pinpointed the island where the ship was being held. A Russian submersible was sent to investigate and came upon the lagoon just as the ship was sinking.

It was victory enough—until Sasha had begun scribbling with a fervor that almost burnt her augment out. A dozen pictures, from a dozen views, of a drowning man, being dragged down by a net. Believing this was significant—and being curious herself—Savina had alerted the Russian submariners. They already had divers in the water.

They found such a man, barely conscious, tangled in a net. They rushed up in diving sleds, forced a respirator into his mouth, and rescued him back to their submersible.

Savina had ordered the man brought here, believing he must be significant. But once at Chelyabinsk 88, he claimed to be just one of the cruise ship’s electricians. During their interrogation, the man had not seemed especially bright to her, just a scarred and shaven brute of a man with a coarse vocabulary and missing one hand. Likewise, Sasha had showed no interest in him. Neither did any of her fellow Omega-class subjects.

It made no sense, and the man proved to be a nuisance, caught one day tapping into a surface broadcast trunk, wired to his prosthetic cuff. They did not know what he was doing nor what type of signal he had sent out, but in the end, it had no repercussions. For security’s sake, they had the cuff surgically removed.

Over the weeks, Savina had grown to believe that the girl’s intensity had just been a childish fear for the drowning man’s life. Done with the matter, she had turned the American over to the care of the laboratory group at the Menagerie. They were studying memory, and a living human subject was raw material not to be wasted.

Savina had sat in on his surgery.

What they had done to him…

It still made her shudder.

But now he was gone—vanished with the brother of Sasha, who was also missing. What game were these children playing?

She didn’t know, and this late in her own plans, she didn’t have time to figure it out.

“Your orders, General-Major?”

“Search the surface.”

“I’ll bring all the dogs,” his voice snapped.

She stopped him. “Not just the dogs.”

Borsakov stared at her, his eyebrows pinched questioningly. But he knew what she wanted done. “General-Major? What about the children?”

She strode away. Now was not the time for subtle actions. She still had ten children. That would be enough.

She confirmed her order. “Loose the cats, too.”

11:45 A.M.

Pyotr sat between Marta’s legs. Her strong, warm arms wrapped around him. He didn’t like to be touched, but he let her. The sweet earthy smell of her damp fur swelled around him. He heard the hush-hush of her breathing, felt the beat of her large heart in his own spine. He had known Marta all his life. He had known these arms. After Pyotr’s first operation at the age of five, she was brought to his room.

He remembered her large hand. It had scared him, but she lay there for most of the day, her head resting on the edge of his bed, staring at him. Finally, one of his hands had drifted to hers. His fingers danced along the wrinkled lines of her overturned paw, curious. She had stared at him with large brown eyes, moist and knowing. Long fingers wrapped around his.

He knew what it was.

A promise.

Others would play with her, cry in her arms, sit long nights with her…but Pyotr knew a truth that morning. She had secrets that were his alone. And his secret was hers.

In those arms, he stared out at the strange woods. They were allowed up here sometimes, to wander the forest with a teacher, to sit in the quietness. But it still frightened Pyotr. A wind whispered through the forest, knocking limbs and shedding twirling falls of leaves. He watched them and knew something was coming.

He was not like his sister.

But some things he knew. He leaned deeper into Marta, away from the leaves. His heart beat faster and the world faded, all except for the leaves. Drifting, twirling, dancing…terrifying…

Marta hooted quietly in his ear. What is wrong?

He trembled and quaked. His heart was in his throat, pounding a warning as more and more leaves fell. He searched in the spaces among the leaves. Konstantin had once told him how he could multiply so fast in his head.

Every number has a shape…even the biggest, longest number is a shape. So when I calculate, I look to the empty space between those two numbers. The gap also has a shape, formed by the boundaries of the other two numbers. And that empty shape, too, is a number. And that number is always the answer.

Pyotr didn’t fully understand. He could not do math like Konstantin, nor could he solve puzzles like Kiska, nor could he see far like his sister. But Pyotr knew no one else who could do what he could do.

He could read hearts…all sorts of hearts.

Great and small.

And something was coming, something with a dark, hungry heart.

Pyotr searched among the falling leaves as his own small heart hammered. He filled in the emptiness one space at a time.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. The world was just falling leaves and the dark spaces between, swirling and churning, reaching for him. In the distance, he heard Konstantin shout his name.

Marta’s arms tightened around him—not protecting him against the others, but holding him safe. She knew his heart, too.

He had to see.

Had to know.

Something was coming.

He filled the spaces with ink and shadow, with the teeth and growl, with the pound of pad on hard ground. He saw what was coming.

SECOND

Chapter 8

September 6, 12:05 P.M.
48,000 feet over the Caspian Sea

Two hours until touchdown.

Gray stared out the windows of the Bombardier Global Express XRS. The day wore rapidly onward as the private jet streaked across the sky. During the course of their journey, the sun had risen on a new day, climbed over their heads, and had begun to fall again behind them. They would be landing on fumes, traveling at a squeak over supersonic speeds. The modified corporate jet had been gifted to Sigma by the billionaire aeronautics financier Ryder Blunt for past services rendered. Two U.S. Air Force pilots pushed the engines to get them to India by midafternoon local time.

Gray turned his attention back to the group assembled around a teak table. He had allowed everyone to sleep for six hours, but most looked exhausted. Kowalski still had his chair reclined flat, snoring in time with the engines. Gray saw no reason to disturb him. They all could use more sleep.

Focused on the dossier in front of her, the only person who showed no weariness was the newcomer to their small group. With expertise in neurology and neurochemistry, the same disciplines as Archibald Polk, it was no wonder Painter had assigned this member of Sigma to join their band.

Dr. Shay Rosauro was a little over average height, her complexion a cinnamon mocha, and her dark amber eyes sparked with flecks of gold and a fierce intelligence. Her shoulder-length black hair was bound back from her face with a black bandanna. She had served in the air force, and from her records, she could have piloted the Bombardier herself. She even wore a uniform blouse top with a wide black belt over khakis and boots.

And while Gray had never worked with her before, it seemed she had met Kowalski. She had done a double take when the large man had stepped into view. Kowalski had grinned, given her a bear hug of a greeting, then passed to climb into the plane. As she followed, she had stared back at Gray with an expression that read you’ve got to be kidding.

With everyone rested, Gray wanted to get his team on the same page by the time they were wheels down in India, especially in regard to whom they were meeting. “Elizabeth, what can you tell us about Dr. Hayden Masterson? In what capacity was your father working with this professor from Mumbai?”

She nodded, stifled a yawn with a fist, then more firmly balanced her glasses on her nose. “He’s originally from Oxford, actually. Trained as a psychologist and physiologist, specializing in meditative techniques and brain function. He’s been in India for the past thirty years, studying the country’s yogis and mystics.”

“A line of research parallel to your father’s.”

Elizabeth nodded.

“I know of Masterson’s work,” Rosauro said with mild surprise. “He’s brilliant, but eccentric, and some of his theories are contentious. He was one of the first researchers to advocate for the plasticity of the human brain, controversial at the time but now readily accepted.”

“What do you mean by plasticity?” Gray asked.

“Well, until the past few years, neurology stuck by an old tenet that the human brain was hardwired, that each section of the brain served one purpose only. One location, one function. For the last two decades, neurology’s goal has been to map out what each part of the brain does. Where speech rises from, which section of the brain handles hearing, which neurons make you feel your left hand, or control balance.”

Gray nodded.

“But now we understand that the brain is not hardwired, that these brain maps are changeable, alterable. Or in other words, plastic. It is such fluidity of function that explains how many stroke victims are able to regain function of paralyzed limbs after a portion of their brains are destroyed. The brain rewires itself around the damage.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Dr. Masterson was extending his research to studies with yogis. Through such mystics’ abilities to control their own metabolism and blood flow, he sought to show how the brain is not only changeable—but trainable. That the brain’s plasticity is moldable.”

Rosauro leaned back. “With the possibilities of harnessing this plasticity, it’s a Brave New World out there for neurologists. Increasing intelligence, helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear.”

Gray pictured the device found on the skull. The deaf to hear. The device had looked like some form of cochlear implant.

Gray asked Elizabeth, “Did Dr. Masterson say when he last saw your father?”

“The professor said he’d tell me more, but he first wanted to talk to the people who had hired my father. He sounded scared. I couldn’t get anything else out of him.”

“Hired him?”

Luca Hearn, the final member of their group, spoke, his Romani accent thicker from his exhaustion. “That would be our clan. We hired Dr. Polk.”

Gray turned to the man. Before landing, Gray had intended to discuss the role of the Gypsies in Dr. Polk’s story. Much had been left unanswered after their flight from the safe house. Such as, why Polk had chosen to contact Luca rather than anyone else? Had it been paranoia? Had the professor believed he could trust no one else? Considering his murder was followed by the suspicious sweep by agents of his own government, maybe Dr. Polk had been right.

“How did you get involved with the professor?” Gray asked.

“He approached us two years ago. He wanted to collect DNA samples from certain members of our clans. Those who practiced pen dukkerin.”

“Pen what?”

Kowalski answered from his sprawl on his bed. He had stopped snoring, but his eyes were still closed as he spoke. “Dukkerin. Fortune-telling. You know, palm reading, gazing in a crystal ball.”

Luca nodded. “It is a tradition among our people, going back centuries, but Dr. Polk didn’t want anyone who was performing hokkani boro—the great trick.”

“Fakers,” Kowalski added. “Tricksters.”

“Dr. Polk knew there were those among our clans who we ourselves respected for their skill in this art. The rare ones. True chovihanis. Those with the gift. Those were who he sought.”

Elizabeth shifted straighter. “My father was doing the same with yogis of India. Taking DNA samples, looking for some commonality.”

Gray remembered how her father sought out those rare cases of documented yogis and mystics, those who demonstrated heightened abilities of intuition or instinct. The fortune-telling and tarot-card reading of the Gypsies would fit that mold. But the genetic angle was new.

It raised another question in Gray’s mind. “Why the sudden switch from studying yogis to Gypsies? What’s the connection?”

Luca stared at him as if he were dense. “Where do you think the Romani clans come from?”

Now it was Gray’s turn to be baffled. He actually didn’t know much about the nomadic Gypsy clans, certainly not their origins.

Luca noted his confusion. “Not many know our story. When our clans first moved into Europe, we were thought to have come from Egypt.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his burnished face. “Because of our dark skin, dark eyes. We were called aigyptoi or Gyptians, which later became the word Gypsies. Until only recently, even our clans were unsure of our origins. But linguists recently discovered that the Romani tongue has its roots in Sanskrit.”

“The language of ancient India,” Gray said, surprised, but he was beginning to understand the connection now.

“We arose from India. That is amaro baro them, our ancestral homeland. Northern India, to be precise, the Punjab region.”

“But why did you migrate away?” Elizabeth asked. “From what I understand of your history, you had a hard time in Europe.”

“Hard time? We were persecuted, hunted, killed.” Fire entered his voice. “We died by the hundreds of thousands at the hands of the Nazis, forced to wear the Black Triangle. Bengesko niamso!” This last was plainly a curse at the Nazis.

Elizabeth glanced away from his vehemence.

Luca shook his head, calming himself. “Not much is known about our early past. Even historians can’t say for certain why the clans left India. From old records, we know the Romani clans fled India sometime in the tenth century, passing through Persia to the empire of Byzantium and beyond. War plagued northwest India during that time. Also India had come to adopt a strict caste system. Those left at the bottom, classified as casteless, were deemed untouchable. These included thieves, musicians, dishonored warriors, but also magicians, those whose abilities were considered heretical by the local religions.”

“Your chovihanis,” Gray said.

Luca nodded. “Life became unbearable, unsafe. So the casteless banded together into clans and left India, headed west, for more welcoming lands.” He snorted bitterly. “We are still searching.”

“Let’s get back to Dr. Polk,” Gray said, redirecting the conversation. “Did you cooperate with the professor’s request? Did you supply him with those samples?”

“We did. A payment in blood. In exchange for his help.”

Gray studied the man. “Help in doing what?”

His voice fired up again. “To find something stolen most brutally from us. The very heart of our people. We—”

The plane bumped violently. Glasses rose in the air, as did Kowalski. He scrabbled from his blanket with a shout of surprise. Gray, belted in his seat, felt his stomach climb into his throat. They lost elevation fast.

The pilot came on over the intercom. “Sorry about that, folks. Hard air ahead.”

The whole plane shook.

“Buckle in tight,” the pilot continued. “We’ll have you on the ground in another hour. And, Commander Pierce, we have a land-to-air call for you coming from Director Crowe. I’ll patch it back to you.”

Gray motioned everyone into their seats. Kowalski had raised his seat back and was already snugging his belt tight.

Swiveling his own chair away from the others, Gray removed the phone from his armrest and lifted it to his ear.

“Commander Pierce here.”

“Gray, I thought I’d brief you on what Lisa and Malcolm learned about the device attached to the skull.”

As Gray listened to the director explain about microelectrodes and autistic savants, he stared out the window. He watched the sun settle to the west as the jet screamed to the east. He pictured the girl’s small face, her fragility, her innocence.

At least she was safe.

But a question nagged at Gray.

Are there others like her out there?

12:22 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk ran with Pyotr in his arms alongside the streambed. The boy clung to him. His eyes were still glassy, his face damp with both sweat and tears. Kiska raced ahead, following the long lope of Marta, who knuckled with both arms. Konstantin kept to Monk’s side.

“How do we know what Pyotr saw was real?” Monk gasped out to Konstantin. “Tigers? Maybe it was just a daydream, a waking nightmare.”

The older boy turned slightly and pulled his wool cap up. He combed back his hair to reveal a shiny curve of steel behind his ear. “You were not the only one operated on.” He pulled down his cap and nodded to Pyotr. “What he saw was no dream.”

Monk struggled to comprehend. Konstantin had already explained how Monk had ended up here, rescued from a sinking cruise ship, based on a drawing done by Pyotr’s sister. It made no sense.

Maybe he was the one dreaming.

Konstantin continued, “There are two Siberian tigers kept at the Menagerie. Arkady and Zakhar. The soldiers sometimes hunt with them in the deep forest. Wild boar and elk. They are very smart. Not easy to fool.”

“How far away?” Monk asked.

Konstantin spoke in Russian to the boy.

Pyotr answered in the same tongue. As he spoke, his voice grew firmer, coming more fully out of his trance.

Konstantin finally nodded. “He does not know. Only that they are coming. He can taste their hunger.”

Monk hurried them down the stream to where it emptied into a wider river. He heard the rush of water before seeing the course. It dug a deep channel. If they could get across—

Something screamed into the air. High overhead and farther back up the narrow valley. It kept on wailing, piercing like a siren. It made his teeth ache and vibrated his bones. The children dropped flat to the ground, covering their heads and rolling in agony. Marta hooted and trotted a protective ring around them.

Cringing against the noise, Monk peered up between spruce branches. Something wafted down into the back half of the valley. It drifted on a red parachute, like a flare, but it carried a round metal object the size of a baseball. The piercing wail came from it. Some sort of sonic flare. Climbing on a boulder, Monk spotted other red pinpricks in the distance. More flares.

He hopped down.

They must be blindly strafing in all directions.

A frantic crashing erupted on the far side of the stream.

Monk caught a flash of tawny fur. His heart thudded in panic.

Tiger.

Instead, two roe deer smashed into view, and with a flash of dancing hooves, they darted away. Monk forced his heart out of his throat and crossed to the children. The sonic blast had flattened them. The hunters knew of the kids’ hypersensitivity and were trying to immobilize them.

Monk scooped Pyotr up with his stumped arm and tossed him across his shoulder. He dragged Kiska to her feet and supported her around the waist, hiking her up. Burdened, Monk crossed to Konstantin, intending to kick the boy into action.

They dared not stop.

Marta intervened. She nosed under Konstantin’s chest and pulled one of his arms over her back. Supporting him with her shoulders, she sidled down toward the river below. The boy’s legs dragged behind her.

Monk followed with the other two children. While deafened by the sonic flare, Monk still felt the boy’s trembling moans of agony. He hobbled faster and reached the river’s course.

The water flowed through a steep-banked channel, a full four meters wide. It churned and gurgled, loud enough to dull the sharper ranges of the sonic flare.

Monk waved to Marta. He pointed downriver. She swung in that direction. They continued, following the twisting course. After a few turns, the steep ridges blocked more and more of the wailing.

Kiska stirred first. She knocked free of Monk’s arm and gained her own feet. She still covered her ears with her hands. Konstantin soon followed, freeing Marta, who panted and gasped, knuckling on both arms.

As they fled from the screams, Monk kept a watch behind him.

Expecting at any moment to see a pair of tigers loping after them.

Distracted, he ran into Kiska, who had stopped. Tangled, he toppled to his knees, dropping the boy to the ground.

Konstantin had also halted at his sister’s side, frozen in place with Marta. It seemed they had more to fear than just the hunters behind them.

Beyond the pair, a massive brown bear rose up from the riverbank. It had to weigh six hundred pounds, damp from the river and plainly tense from the caterwauling of the flares. Black eyes stared back at their party. It rose up on its hind limbs, stretching eight feet tall, bristling, growling, baring yellow teeth.

The Russian grizzly.

The symbol of Mother Russia.

With a roar, it fell and charged straight at them.

6:03 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

The old man woke into brightness. It stung his eyes and pounded into his skull. He groaned and turned his head away. Nausea spilled burning gorge up into his throat. He choked it back down with a gasp.

He blinked away the glare and found himself strapped to a bed. Though a sheet covered him, he knew he was naked. The room was stark white, clinical, sterile. No windows. A single door with a small barred window. Closed.

A figure sat in a chair beside the bed, in a suit, the jacket hung on the seat back, sleeves rolled up. His legs were crossed, his hands folded primly on his lap.

He leaned forward. “Good morning, Yuri.”

Trent McBride smiled down at him without a trace of warmth.

Yuri glanced down to his chest, remembering being shot by a tranquilizer dart. He searched around, still confused, dazed.

“You’ve been given a counterstimulant,” McBride said. “Must have you alert, since we have much to discuss.”

“Kak…ya…,” he choked out, his tongue pasty and thick.

McBride sighed, reached to a bedside table where a glass with a straw rested, and offered Yuri a sip.

He did not refuse. The lukewarm liquid burned like the finest vodka. It pushed back the shadows at the edges of his thoughts and washed the paste from his tongue.

“Trent, what are you doing?” Yuri tugged at the straps that bound down his arms.

“Filling in the blanks.” McBride pressed an intercom button at the head of the bed. “As I mentioned, you’ve not been forthcoming with all the details of your research at Chelyabinsk 88. We must correct that oversight.”

“How do you mean?” Yuri tried to sound innocent, but he failed miserably as his voice shook. He wished he were a stronger man.

“Hmm,” Trent said. He leaned forward and stripped the sheet covering Yuri. “I suppose we might as well get the ugly part over with so we can speak like true colleagues.”

Yuri stared down at his naked body. His pale skin was dotted by tiny suction cups, each the size of a dime, topped by a pea-size knot of electronics sprouting a thread-thin antenna. They lined his legs from toe to groin, his arms from fingertip to shoulder. His chest was a chessboard grid of the sticky cups.

Before he could question what they were, the door to the room opened and a slender figure entered. Yuri had to struggle a moment to remember his name, though he had just met the man. Dr. James Chen. They had used the researcher’s office for the meeting at Walter Reed.

The door clamped shut, soundproofed.

Chen crossed to them. He carried a laptop open in his arms. “We’re all calibrated.”

As the man settled into a seat and rested his laptop on the bedside table, Yuri caught a glimpse of the computer screen before it was swung away. It had a stylized figure of an outstretched man dotted with small glowing circles.

“Electroacupuncture,” McBride said and waved a hand over the array of suction cups. “Microelectrodes inserted into acupuncture points along the prime meridians. I don’t purport to understand it fully. This is Dr. Chen’s line of expertise. He’s made remarkable progress using this technique to alleviate pain, allowing battlefield surgery without general anesthesia. Brilliant work and why he became a Jason. I then recruited him to our joint investigation because of his innovative use of microelectrodes. Microelectrodes like you used with your own test subjects.”

McBride tweaked one of the antennas with a finger. Yuri felt a stinging stab. “We’ve learned that what can be used to deaden pain in the right circumstances, can also be used to amplify it.”

“Trent…don’t…,” Yuri begged.

McBride ignored him, turned to Chen, and pointed to one of the cups near his knee, then to a second one near his groin.

The researcher lifted a stylus and drew a line on the computer screen.

Yuri’s leg blistered with fiery pain. A scream burst from his throat. It was as if someone had dug a scalpel from knee to groin, cutting down to the bone. Then it ended just as quickly.

Gasping, Yuri searched down. He expected to see blood flowing, flesh smoking. But there was only pale skin.

McBride waved again across the field of tiny cups. “We can do the same across any of these points. In any pattern. We can flay you alive without harming a hair. A virtual operation with all the pain.”

“Wh-why?”

McBride stared down at him again. While his face was mild, his eyes were fierce. “I will have answers, yes? Let’s start with what you’ve been keeping secret about the children.”

“I don’t—”

McBride turned to Chen.

“No!” Yuri shouted out.

McBride leaned back to him. “Then let’s not play games. We’ve been able to replicate your augments without any difficulty. The schematics that your team provided were very thorough and precise. But in the end, not all that innovative. Merely a sophisticated TMS device. We attempted to duplicate your results, using a pair of autistic savant children in Canada. Our experiments were…well, let’s just say disappointing.”

Yuri inwardly cringed. So the Americans were closer than even Savina had suspected. They’d already come to recognize how unique the situation was at Chelyabinsk 88.

“So,” McBride asked again, “what have you been keeping secret from us?”

Yuri hesitated too long. A fiery slash cut across his chest. His muscles spasmed, his back arched from the bed. He screamed so loudly that no sound came out.

As the pain cut off, Yuri trembled and quaked with aftershocks. He tasted blood on his tongue. Still he dared not wait. What did it matter if the Americans found out? It was already too late.

“DNA,” he gasped out. “It’s their DNA.”

McBride hovered closer. “How do you mean?”

Yuri swallowed, gulping for air. “The secret lies in the subjects’ genetics. We only discovered this ourselves twelve years ago.”

Yuri explained in fits and starts, questioned repeatedly by McBride. He related the discovery in 1959 of a cluster of exceptional savant talent, a group of Gypsy children. A genetic line that ran through the history of the Gypsies. The chovihanis. The clans kept this line secret and attempted to preserve it through inbreeding, resulting in genetic aberrations. He told how the Russians had stolen this genetic heritage for study, for incorporation into their own research into parapsychology.

“But it was nothing mystical,” Yuri explained. “The children were merely savants…though savants of a prodigious level. We tried to heighten their ability—first through breeding, then through bioengineering. But over the years, as genetic testing grew more refined, we were able to pinpoint what made the children unique.”

McBride leaned closer.

“Autism is triggered by a mix of environmental factors coupled with a variable number of ten genes. What we discovered was that the strongest of the savants—our Omega-class subjects—carried a specific three genes. Three genetic markers. When they appeared in just the right sequence, coupled with mild to moderate autism, an amazing savant talent would arise.”

“Which you in turn augmented further,” McBride said. “Creating a perfect storm of genetics and bioengineering.”

Yuri nodded.

“Brilliant. Truly brilliant. Then it was just as well we used Archibald to lure one of your Omega subjects out into the open. And all the more reason for us to get hold of that girl.”

Yuri startled. Concern rang through him. “You don’t have Sasha?”

McBride frowned and tilted back to his chair. “No, but in the past hour, we’ve determined where she is likely being kept. And it seems the same group has sent a team to follow in Archibald’s footsteps. Luckily we have taken measures to erase those footsteps completely.”

“Who…who has Sasha?”

“You want to know?” McBride glowered down at Yuri. It was plainly a sore spot for the man. “I’ll show you.”

He motioned to Chen.

No!

Yuri’s chest lit with fire, streaking in jagged lines across his chest, linking point to point, forming a crooked symbol on his chest, a letter, a fiery Greek letter.

McBride growled through Yuri’s agony. “They won’t be a problem for long.”

2:04 P.M.
Agra, India

Despite her father’s fascination, Elizabeth had never been to India. She stared out the taxi van as it swept away from the airport. The windows were down but offered little relief from the heat, well over a hundred degrees.

Traffic moved at a snail’s pace, snarled amid rickshaws pulled by both bicycles and even one camel. She was close enough to a neighboring taxi, whose windows were also open, that she could smell the driver’s thin cigar as he chewed on its end. The smoke cut like a knife through the density of the city’s mélange of curry, filth, and cooking grease. The neighboring driver huffed at the traffic and pounded the heel of his hand on his horn.

The blare was barely heard above the chaos, made worse by a festival under way ahead, bright with the sounds of cymbals. All around, pedestrians packed the sidewalks and walked through the creeping cars, fighting for space with bicycles and motorcycles.

Elizabeth found her breathing growing heavier, her chest constricting—not from the humidity and heat but from the press of humanity. She wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but the noise, the unending vibrancy, the hawk and holler of so many people, blanketed her, squeezed her. Her hands formed fists on her knees.

Finally, through judicious use of his own horn, the taxi driver broke through a gap and pushed for the next intersection. He turned the corner, and the way opened to a wider thoroughfare that aimed straight for the heart of the city.

Elizabeth sighed in relief.

“Finally,” Kowalski said next to her, echoing her sentiment. “We should’ve rented a van. I could’ve gotten us there faster.”

The large man was crammed against her side, but he seemed to sense her distress and tried to keep back, which didn’t help the other passenger sharing their row.

Beyond Kowalski, Shay Rosauro elbowed the large man for more room. Her face shone with a sheen of sweat. She had used the time stuck in traffic to undo the black bandanna that bound her hair and refold it into an efficient head scarf that tucked behind her ears.

Gray, who sat in the front passenger’s seat of the van, leaned toward the driver and pointed. The driver nodded. Gray settled back into place.

The final member of their company sat in the back row of the van. Luca Hearn wore an inscrutable expression, but his dark eyes seemed to watch everything. He had strapped two daggers to wrist sheaths before leaving the plane, prepared for an unwelcome homecoming to the land of his people.

Gray twisted in his seat. “We’ll be at the hotel in another ten minutes,” he called back to them.

The taxi sped to where the road ended at the Yamuna River. Its waters glinted like blue steel in the bright sunlight, lined by palms. To the left rose a massive fort built of red sandstone, with high parapets and thick walls. Reaching the river, they turned away from the fort and followed the curve of the waterway.

Traffic slowed again, but in only a few minutes, the view opened to the left, revealing an expansive parkland of meadows, gardens, reflecting pools, and patches of forest. The greenbelt hugged the banks of the river, but the true wonder seemed to float above it all, a cloud of white marble set against the shimmering blue sky.

The Taj Mahal.

The mausoleum was an engineering wonder and an architectural marvel. But at the moment, it appeared more like a dream, aglow and drifting in the heavens. Built over three centuries ago by the Mughal emperor Shāh Jāhan, to mark the final resting place of his beloved wife, it was to many a testament to the eternity of love.

But it was not their destination.

The taxi van skirted to the side and pulled up to a five-story white building, lined at each level by large arched windows, the Deedar-e-Taj Hotel. It was here they were to meet Dr. Hayden Masterson.

“The restaurant is on the top,” Elizabeth said as they piled out. She checked her watch. They were half an hour late.

Gray paid the driver, and they all crossed past a dancing fountain into the hotel lobby, gloriously air-conditioned.

“Kowalski,” Gray said and pointed to the front desk, “you and Luca secure our rooms. We’ll head up.” He nodded to Elizabeth and Rosauro.

Kowalski sighed heavily, but he mumbled something about a cold shower. He hovered a moment near Elizabeth as Gray turned toward the elevator. “Are you okay?” he mumbled to her.

“Me?”

“Back in the taxi. I thought maybe…you looked sort of…” He shrugged.

“Just the heat…maybe nerves,” she mumbled.

“I have just the ticket.” He leaned conspiratorially over to her and parted his suit jacket enough to reveal two cigars in an inner pocket. “Cubans. From the duty-free shop at the airport.”

She smiled at him. She could almost kiss him right now.

Before she could say anything, the elevator chimed behind her. Gray called for her to hurry.

Kowalski straightened and patted his jacket. He winked at her as he turned away. Actually winked. Who still winked? Still, her smile did linger on her lips as she turned to join Gray and Rosauro.

Gray ushered her inside and punched the button for the top floor. “Is there anything else we should know about Dr. Masterson?” he asked her.

“Just don’t mention Manchester United,” she mumbled.

“The soccer team?”

“Trust me, or you’ll never hear a word about my father or his research. Also, don’t push him. Let him get to the point in his own time.”

The elevator doors whisked open upon a strange sight. A large restaurant filled the roof level, sparsely occupied at this hour. Tables were set with linen and fine china. The smell of curry and garlic lingered tantalizingly in the air.

But what was unusual was that the entire restaurant slowly rotated. It spun through a panoramic view of the city, including the Taj Mahal.

At a table by one of the windows, a tall man unfolded from his seat. He lifted an arm, then lowered it, and tapped at his wristwatch.

Elizabeth smiled and crossed toward him, stepping onto the turning platform. It was a bit disconcerting at first, but she led the others forward through the nests of empty tables. A few servers in gold vests nodded a greeting to them.

It had been several years since she had last seen Dr. Masterson. He still wore his characteristic white suit, formal, colonial, with a wide-brimmed Panama hat that rested on a neighboring table. A cane leaned there, too, with a hooked ivory handle carved in the shape of a white crane. His hair, worn long to the shoulder, had also gone white to match, which she was sure did not entirely displease him. His face was craggy, leathery, tanned to a deep bronze that by now probably never faded.

Elizabeth made formal introductions. Dr. Shay Rosauro expressed what an honor it was to meet him, which went a long way to turning his irritated frown into something that bordered on welcoming. Women were a weakness of Hayden’s, especially the attention of someone as long-limbed and lithe as Dr. Rosauro. Elizabeth’s father had once hinted at why the professor had remained at the University of Mumbai, versus Oxford or Cambridge. It seemed to involve a sticky matter concerning an undergraduate student.

Hayden waved them all to their seats, making sure Dr. Rosauro was positioned next to him. By the time they were situated, the restaurant had rotated to a stunning view of the Taj Mahal.

Hayden noted their attention. “The mausoleum to Mumtaz Mahal, wife of the Shh Jhan!” he said with a bluster. “That dear wife of the emperor extracted four promises from the bloke.” He ticked them off with his fingers. “To build a great tomb to her, of course. Second, that he would marry again. Now that’s a wife! Third, that he’d be forever kind to their children. And lastly, that Jahan would visit her tomb each year on the anniversary of her death. Which he did honor, until the day he was buried in the Taj with his dear wife.”

“True love,” Rosauro said, staring out at the beauty of the mausoleum.

“And what’s a love story without a little spilled blood?” Hayden said and patted Rosauro’s hand. He left his palm resting there. “It is alleged that Jahan had the hands of all his artisans chopped off upon completion of the tomb, to ensure that they could never again build a monument with such grace as the Taj Mahal.”

At Hayden’s other side, Gray stirred, plainly anxious to bring the discussion to bear on the reason they’d all traveled halfway around the globe. Elizabeth brushed her toe against Gray’s, warning him.

His eyes met hers.

Don’t push him, she silently communicated.

As she faced around, Hayden’s right ear blew away with a spray of blood—at the exact time a sharp chime rang out like struck crystal.

Gray and Rosauro both moved while Elizabeth was still frozen in place. Rosauro yanked Hayden down to the floor; Gray tackled into Elizabeth. She caught a glimpse of a perfect hole in the pane of glass behind Hayden, radiating cracks.

As she fell, more holes appeared with ringing cracks—then she hit the floor, Gray on top of her.

“Stay down!”

She cringed flat as a barrage of gunfire ripped through the restaurant, coming from some sniper on a neighboring rooftop. Crystal glassware shattered. One of the servers twisted around, as if kicked, and fell flat. Blood poured out onto the tile floor.

Gray urged her to crawl. But Elizabeth was too afraid to move. The sniper couldn’t shoot her if she remained where she was. Gray corrected her of this misconception.

“He’s pinning us down!” he hollered to both Elizabeth and Hayden, who also seemed unwilling to move. “Trying to hold us here!”

Elizabeth understood what that implied. She gained her hands and knees. They had to move. Now.

More gunmen were on their way here.

Chapter 9

September 6, 1:01 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

As the bear charged, the large man shoved Pyotr down the steep riverbank. Arms out, he struck hard and rolled. Branches poked, something scraped his cheek. Pyotr tumbled toward the river, scrabbling amid the wet ferns and slippery beds of pine needles. He didn’t know how to swim. Water terrified him.

Sharper screams cut through the bear’s roar.

His friends.

Konstantin and Kiska.

Pyotr’s knee struck a rock with a pain that shot to his spine. He landed flat on the riverbank’s edge. Water swirled past his nose.

He cringed back from his reflection in the dark waters. His image swam and churned, sunlight glinted and sparked as a strong gust stirred the branches overhanging the river.

Pyotr hung there in that scintillating moment of terror, suspended above the dark, dazzling water.

He’d had no warning of the brown bear until it rose up before them. Its gentle heart had been overshadowed by the hunger that hunted them, its steady beat muffled by the strident siren behind them.

Still, Pyotr’s terror spiked higher.

Not because of the water.

Not because of the bear.

Light and dark swirled under him. Oil on water.

Not the bear.

Not the bear.

He panted in dread.

The bear was not the danger.

Something else…

1:02 P.M.

Monk raised his pack, his only weapon, as the bear pounded down upon him. He had shoved Pyotr toward the water and the other two children into the underbrush on the other side. Marta leaped to a low branch and swung down toward Pyotr.

Monk hollered and swung his pack high in the air.

The bear barreled straight at him. Monk flung the pack hard and leaped to the side. Too late. As he flew, the bear struck his legs like a freight train, flipping Monk sideways. The pack bounced uselessly off its furry shoulders.

Monk hit the trunk of a larch tree broadside and crumpled to its base. With the wind knocked from him, he gasped and fought to his feet, his arms up to protect his face and head.

But the bear ignored him and charged onward down the deer track.

Monk stumbled back to the path. Forty yards away, the bear bowled into two shadowy shapes lurking there. Two tall wolves, long limbed and snarling. The bear swatted a massive paw and sent one wolf flying, end over end. The other leaped for the bear’s throat but found only yellow teeth and a fierce bellow of rage. The wolf howled, but still fought.

Monk noticed the cap of steel on the back of the wolves’ skulls. Hunters from the underground city. Scouts. There could be more.

Monk quickly gathered Konstantin and Kiska. Marta appeared, with Pyotr riding her back. Monk collected the boy and pointed.

“Run!” he whispered.

They took off together. If there were other hunters on the trail behind them, they would have to get past the bear. It offered some protection.

Monk glanced back as the battle continued amid roars and howls. The bear had reacted with swift and deadly aggression, responding with a blind hostility that bordered on fury. Did the bear have experience with these wolves? Had the soldiers hunted the woods with them? Or was it something more fundamental, a reaction to an affront against nature. Like a lioness swiftly killing off a deformed cub.

Either way, it bought Monk and the children some extra leeway.

But for how long?

2:28 P.M.
Agra, India

Gray herded everyone across the shattered restaurant. Without a clear target, the continual barrage from the sniper had died down to bursts, enough to keep them pinned low.

Moving in a crouch, Gray aimed for the fire exit. The stairwell opened beside the elevator. They dared not use the lift. Whoever arranged this ambush surely had people posted in the lobby, watching the front exit and elevator bay. To call for the lift would only alert any men posted below. They’d be trapped. The only hope was to use the stairs to reach another level of the hotel and hole up in one of the rooms and regroup.

Their route to the stairwell was confounded by the rotation of the floor, but Gray knew the motion had also saved Dr. Masterson’s life. That first bullet had been meant for the back of the professor’s skull. The rotation of the floor must have thrown off the sniper’s aim, turning a fatal shot into a grazing wound.

Gray had to give the old guy some credit. After the initial shock, he seemed hardly fazed. He pressed a cloth napkin against his ear, already soaked with blood. He had somehow managed to grab his white hat and had it perched aslant on his head. Rosauro kept to his side, bearing the man’s ivory-handled cane.

Gray and Elizabeth reached the stationary lobby of the restaurant, followed a step behind by Rosauro and Masterson. “The stairs,” Gray said.

“On it.”

Rosauro dashed across the lobby in two running strides, then slid low to the door like a baseball player stealing home. She smoothly slipped a Sig Sauer semiautomatic from an ankle holster. Staying on her knees, she reached up, yanked the handle, and used her shoulder to nudge the door open, just wide enough to cover with her pistol and observe the stairs.

Gray heard it immediately. Boots pounded up the tile stairs. Many boots.

“Seven to ten,” Rosauro assessed.

They were too late.

“Hold them back,” Gray ordered and rolled over to the elevator.

Noting his destination, Elizabeth reached for one of the call buttons, but Gray blocked her before she could press it. According to the lighted display above the doors, the cage was still waiting at the lobby level. It was surely under watch.

Gray scooted over to one of the restaurant’s service stations and found a carving knife and an armful of folded tablecloths. He returned to the elevator and slipped the knife between the doors. He levered the blade enough to get his fingers and the tip of a boot through the gap. With a single heave, he shoved the doors open.

As he did so, the crack of a pistol blasted—followed by a cry of surprise and pain from the stairwell. A short spat of gunplay followed. But Rosauro had the higher ground. Gray didn’t know how long that advantage would hold out. If they rushed her post, she’d be swamped.

They had to move fast.

Beyond the open doors, the elevator shaft was pitch dark. Two oily cables dangled. There was also a metal service ladder to one side.

They’d never have time to climb.

Gray passed the tablecloths to Masterson and Elizabeth. He showed them how to bundle them between their hands. “It’s only a short step,” he assured them and pointed to the cables. “Hang tight and brake with your shoes. Try not to make too much noise when you get to the cage below. Wait for us there.”

He got a worried nod from Elizabeth and a roll of the eyes from Masterson. But the gunfire discouraged any dissent. Elizabeth pressed forward first. She reached out with her wrapped hands and leaped to the cables. With a small cry, she slid down the shaft.

Once she disappeared into the gloom, Masterson followed, securing his cane under his pant belt, like a sword in a scabbard. He was tall and long-limbed enough to reach the cables by stretching his arms out.

Down he went.

“Go!” Rosauro called to him. She did not turn but fired two quick shots. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“The elevator latch—”

“Go, Pierce!”

Gray knew better than to argue with a woman…especially one with a gun. He bundled his hands, leaped, and mounted the cable. He slid down with a shout back to Rosauro.

Before he even finished his yell, she appeared at the lip overhead, limned against the brightness. She swung to the service ladder, yanked the inside latch, and closed the elevator doors. Darkness swallowed Gray as he slid down the cable. He felt the line shake as Rosauro joined him.

Gray’s eyes quickly grew accustomed to the gloom. Weak light filtered through each level’s doors. As he slid past the floors, counting them down, he made out the shadowy elevator car below. Two figures huddled together at one corner.

A tiny flicker of flame ignited below.

Elizabeth’s cigarette lighter.

Gray braked his descent and landed lightly atop the elevator.

A moment later, Rosauro dropped next to him.

Gray found the service hatch. He removed his own weapon and opened the hatch enough to peek through. The cage was empty below, the doors closed. He motioned the others to remain on top.

Gripping the edge of the hatchway with one hand, Gray swung down and dropped into a crouch, his weapon up. He reached for the button that opened the doors. He heard shouts and panic coming from the lobby. The gunfire had stirred the sleepy hotel into a beehive.

Just as well.

The chaos could serve them.

Gray hit the button, and the doors parted. He darted out as soon as there was enough space and ducked to the left, where a waist-high planter supported a dwarf palm tree.

The lobby churned and milled with people. Management yelled in both Hindi and English.

Steps away, Gray immediately picked out two people who looked too calm, wearing jackets despite the heat. Hands in pockets. He noted earpieces in place.

They spotted him, too.

But his sudden and unexpected appearance caught them off guard. Despite the crowd, Gray had no choice but to react quickly. A prolonged firefight would only threaten more lives.

With his weapon already raised through the palm leaves, he squeezed the trigger and dropped the first man with a headshot. Pivoting on his toe, he squeezed twice more in rapid succession, knowing his aim was not as fixed. The first shot struck the man’s shoulder, spinning him back. The second went wide and buried itself into the plaster wall.

The gunman fired through the pocket of his jacket, but Gray dropped to the floor as plaster blasted behind him. Lying on his shoulder, arms extended, he fired again, a few inches from the floor. The assailant’s ankle exploded, and he toppled face forward and hit the marble floor hard with his chin, shattering bone. He didn’t move again.

Gray turned to the elevator in time to see the cage doors slip closed.

The bystanders in the lobby, stunned for a breath, emptied in all directions with screams and shouts.

Gray stabbed the button.

Nothing.

He glanced up to the lighted display. The elevator had been called.

It was headed up.

Up toward the gunmen in the rooftop restaurant.

Crouching atop the elevator, Elizabeth heard the lift pulleys engage. With a lurch, the car began to rise. The elevator had been called.

“Mierda…,” Rosauro swore next to her.

Elizabeth stared up to the dark shaft. “What are we going to do?” she asked. She still held her lighter, flickering with a tiny flame. She felt helpless, and she hated how her hands shook.

“You’re going to stay here,” Rosauro said and leaned forward and blew out the flame. “In the dark. Not a word. Not a sound.”

The woman sat on the lip of the hatch, then dropped down into the elevator.

“Close the door,” she called quietly up to them. “But keep it unlocked. Just in case.”

In case of what?

Still, Elizabeth obeyed. She swung the hatch almost closed, holding it ajar with her pinky. Her last sight of Rosauro was as the woman readied her weapon.

Biting back a curse as the elevator lifted away, Gray ran for the stairs. He knocked a few people aside and leaped over a couple huddled low on the stairs, covering their heads. He mounted the stairs three at a time, racing around and around, pausing only long enough to make sure the car hadn’t stopped. If he could get above it and hit the call button, then he could stop the elevator before it reached the roof.

He missed it on the second level and sprinted.

Shouts called from above, deep-throated and brusque. It sounded like the assault team was headed back down. Gray burst onto the third floor to check the elevator and ran smack into a wall—or rather, the human equivalent of it.

Kowalski stood at the elevator bay, finger on the button.

“Gray!” he said, rubbing his stomach. “Ow, what the hell, man?”

The elevator chimed open.

Rosauro leaped out, her pistol pressed into Kowalski’s face.

“Hey!” He bumped back a step.

“You called the elevator?” Gray asked.

“Yeah, I was going up to the restaurant, find out what all the commotion was.”

Gray didn’t know which was Kowalski’s greatest asset: his thickheadedness or his laziness.

“Everybody out!” Gray yelled.

Rosauro was already in motion, helping Elizabeth and Masterson down through the hatch. Gray led them back to the stairs. Kowalski brought up their rear.

Rosauro moved alongside him as they fled down the stairs. “I heard them speaking English. No British accents. American.”

Gray nodded.

Mercenaries from the look of the pair in the lobby.

Still, he pictured the man he’d spotted outside the Museum of American History. With the name badge from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mapplethorpe. Someone knew they’d be here.

They reached the deserted lobby. Gray urged everyone toward the open door—but before they could reach it, a figure stepped into view. He shouldered a snub-nosed M4 carbine assault rifle. Additionally, strapped to his back, he bore a long-barreled M24, fitted with a sniper’s scope.

It was the gunman from the neighboring rooftop.

The barrel of his weapon pointed at Masterson’s nose.

The sniper didn’t intend to miss this shot.

Then the gunman’s head snapped backward. He dropped to his knees like a puppet with its strings cut. Then fell face forward with a clatter. At the base of his skull, the shiny steel handle of a throwing dagger protruded.

Beyond the body, Luca stood outside by the dancing fountain. The Gypsy had another dagger ready in his hand. Gray kicked away the loose rifle, which Kowalski retrieved. Luca rushed up to them and yanked out his knife.

“Thanks,” Gray said.

“I was outside smoking when the gunfire began,” the man explained and waved to the courtyard. “Tracked its source across the street. Went over there. I was going up when he came down, so I hid and followed him back here.”

Gray clapped the man gratefully on the shoulder. He’d saved all their lives. Gray pointed to the door. “Everybody out. We need to get out of this city. Fast.”

They hurried out to the street.

“Fast might be a problem,” Kowalski said. He stood with one hand on his hip, half hiding the snubbed assault rifle under his suit jacket.

Gray stared up and down the street and along the neighboring service alley. Every direction was packed with taxis, rickshaws, wagons, trucks, and cars.

All stopped dead. Not moving.

A chorus of horns and music blared, along with singing and chanting. A festival was in full swing down the street. The commotion had helped to mask the chaos at the hotel, but not completely.

Distantly, Gray heard a siren wailing. City police. Responding to the gunfire. He also heard shouts echo out of the lobby. The assault team headed down.

Rosauro turned to him. “What do we—?”

A scream of motorcycle engines cut her off. Gray turned. To the left a few blocks back, three black bikes zigzagged through the logjam. Too fast, too intent. They barreled through people, knocking them aside. They sped straight toward the hotel. Each bike bore an additional rider with a rifle. More commandos.

Gray pulled everyone into the service alley, out of direct view. He turned to Masterson and snatched the white hat from his head. “Your coat, too,” he ordered as he crammed the hat on his own head.

“What do you intend, sir?” Masterson asked as he climbed out of his white jacket.

“That sniper targeted you first, Dr. Masterson. You’re the primary target.”

“Pierce…,” Rosauro said warningly.

Gray hiked into the loose jacket. “I’m going to lead those bikes away,” he explained and pointed to the crowded street. He aimed his other arm down the narrow alley. “You take the others that way. We’ll regroup at the fort we saw coming into town.”

Rosauro paused to digest his plan, then quickly nodded.

“I’m coming with you,” Kowalski said. He stepped from beside Elizabeth and raised his weapon. “You’ll need backup.”

Rosauro nodded. “He’s better with you than me. I’ll have enough on my hands protecting the civilians.”

Gray didn’t have time to argue. He could use a little muscle and firepower. “Go!” he said.

“Mr. Pierce!”

Gray turned back. Masterson tossed his cane at him. He caught it, completing his ensemble.

“Just don’t lose it! That’s an eighteenth-century ivory handle!”

Gray hurried out into the streets with Kowalski in tow. He ran in a feigned stumble, waving his cane, shouting with a British accent. “Someone help! They’re bloody trying to kill me!”

He headed down the street toward the festival, running among the stalled cars and idling wagons. Behind them, the motorcycles choked and bobbled as they reached the hotel—then whined back up into a full scream.

Coming after them.

Kowalski followed. “They’ve taken the bait.”

6:33 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

A knock on the door startled Painter. He had been close to dozing off, seated in his chair, elbows on the desktop, a pile of notes and test results from Lisa and Malcolm beneath his face. Earlier, he had ordered Kat to take a nap in one of the medical center’s spare beds. Up all night himself, he should’ve taken that same advice.

He pressed the lock release under his desk, and the door swung open. He’d been expecting Lisa or Malcolm. Painter sat straighter in surprise and gained his feet.

A tall, wide-shouldered man entered, dressed in a blue suit. His red hair had gone mostly a whitish gray, combed neatly back.

“Sean?”

Sean McKnight was the director of DARPA and Painter’s immediate superior. He’d also been the man to recruit Painter into Sigma over a decade ago, when Sean had sat in Painter’s chair. McKnight had been the visionary first director of Sigma, taking Archibald Polk’s concept and turning it into reality. But more important, Sean was a good friend.

The man waved Painter back into his seat.

“Don’t get up for me, son,” he said. “I’m not about to take that chair again.”

Painter smiled. On his first day as director, Sean had sent Painter a crate of antacids. He had thought it was a good gag gift—but a couple of years later, Painter had gone through half the crate.

“Something tells me, Sean, your job isn’t any lighter.”

“Not today it’s not.” Sean sank into a chair across the desk from him. “I’ve been checking into that man Commander Pierce saw outside the museum. Mapplethorpe. John Mapplethorpe.”

“So it wasn’t a false I.D. he’d spotted?”

“On the contrary. Mapplethorpe is a division chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency. His oversight is the Russian Federation and its splinter states.”

Painter recalled Malcolm’s initial assessment about where Polk had been fatally exposed to radiation. Chernobyl. What was Mapplethorpe’s role in all of this?

“The man has powerful allies among intelligence agencies,” Sean continued. “Known for his ruthlessness and manipulation. But he’s also known as someone who can get results. A valuable commodity in Washington.”

“So how is he involved in all of this?”

“I’ve read your update. You know all about the declassified Project Stargate. How it was discontinued in the middle 1990s.”

“But it wasn’t,” Painter said. “In its final years, it vanished into the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

“That’s correct. It became Mapplethorpe’s project. He was approached in 1996 by a pair of Russian scientists—who were running the Soviet Union’s version of Stargate. They were strapped for funds and sought our aid. We agreed to help—for our mutual benefit in this new world of borderless enemies. So a small cabal of Jasons was assigned to work jointly with the Russians. That’s when the whole project went deeply classified. Vanished. Only a handful of people were even aware of its continuing existence.”

“Until Archibald came stumbling to our doorstep,” Painter said.

“We believe he sought to expose them. To bring out evidence.”

“Of the atrocities being committed in the name of science.”

“In the name of national security,” Sean corrected. “Keep that in mind. That’s the oil that greases the wheels in Washington. Do not underestimate Mapplethorpe. He knows how to play this game. And he believes himself a true patriot. He’s also gone a long way to establish himself as such in the intelligence communities. Here and abroad.”

Painter shook his head.

Sean continued, “Mapplethorpe has got every intelligence agency in the country looking for that skull you acquired. Every combination of initials imaginable. CIA, FBI, NSA, NRO, ONI…I wager he’s even employed the network of retired spies with the AARP.”

Sean tried to smile at his own joke, but it came out tired. “I can’t keep a lid on this much longer. Archibald was shot right on your doorstep. His ties to the Jasons, to Sigma, will not go unnoticed for long. And after last year’s government oversight on our operations, there are many classified trails that lead here.”

“So what are you saying?” Painter asked.

“I think it’s time that the skull made a reappearance. The wolves are circling closer. I can broker the skull through another intelligence agency, so it doesn’t leave a trail back to Sigma.” He met and held Painter’s gaze.

“But that’ll buy you only a half a day grace period with the girl. If Gray and his team don’t have answers before then, we may be forced to give her up.”

“I won’t do that, Sean.”

“You may have no choice.”

Painter stood. “Then you meet her first. You look at her, what was done to her. And you tell me how I can hand that girl over to Mapplethorpe.”

Painter saw his mentor balk. It was easier to condemn the faceless. Still, Sean nodded and stood. He never shied from the difficult. It was why Painter respected the man so much.

“Let’s go say hello,” Sean said.

They exited together and descended the two levels to where the child was being kept.

As they reached the lower floor, Painter spotted Kat and Lisa at the end of the hall near the door to the girl’s room. Kat seemed frantic. Painter knew the woman had been upset after seeing the child draw a picture of her husband, Monk, but Kat had eventually calmed down. She had admitted opening her wallet to show the girl pictures of her own daughter, Penelope, as a baby, hoping to establish a bond with the child. She’d had a picture of Monk among the photos.

But I’m sure she didn’t see it, Kat had said. At least I’m fairly certain.

The only other explanation, as wild as it might be, was that the girl had somehow plucked Monk’s image out of Kat’s head, someone close to the woman’s heart.

Either way, Kat had calmed down and agreed that it was best she take a nap. Exhaustion had put her on edge.

Spotting the men now, Kat came down the hall to meet them, plainly too anxious to wait.

“Director,” she said in a rush, “we were about to call you. The girl’s fever is spiking again. We have to do something. Lisa thinks…thinks she’s dying.”

2:35 P.M.
Agra, India

Gray hurried down the street. The closer he got to the major intersection ahead, the worse the traffic snarled. Pedestrians were now packed shoulder to shoulder, slowly flowing through the creeping vehicles. The festival closed off the major thoroughfare. Traffic was diverted to secondary roads.

Horns blared, bicycle bells rang, people yelled and cursed.

Behind them, the scream of the motorcycles had wound down to a deep-throated growl. Even the hunters had become mired in this bog of humanity. Still, Gray made sure to stay low.

Kowalski shoved closer to him, ducking under the nose of a horse-drawn wagon. “Some of ’em are on foot now.”

Gray glanced back. The three black motorcycles had been slowly losing ground. The cycle’s passengers had abandoned the bikes and now followed through the crowd behind them. Two flanked the road, and one came down the center of the street.

Three threats had become six.

“Don’t like those odds,” Gray mumbled. He came up with a fast plan and told Kowalski what to do and where to meet. “I’ll take the high road. You take the low.”

The large man crouched in front of a truck. He stared at the muck of droppings from horse, donkey, and camel underfoot. “How come I have to take the low road?”

“Because I’m wearing white.”

With a shake of his head, Kowalski dropped even lower, one hand on the asphalt. In a crouch, he shuffled back toward the hotel.

Holding the Panama hat atop his head, Gray leaped to the trunk of the taxi ahead and fled across the top of it toward the festival. His boots pounded a timpani across the taxi’s rooftop and hood—then he bounded over to the next car in line and continued down the street, leaping and clambering across the tops of cars, taxis, and wagons. Shouts followed him, and fists shook in his wake. But in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the high road was the faster mode of travel.

Gray glanced over a shoulder. As he’d hoped, the hunters had spotted him. In order not to lose him, the three on foot had mounted the high road, too. They came after him from three different directions, but at least they were too unbalanced to risk a shot at him.

Crouching low, using Masterson’s cane for balance and support, Gray leapfrogged his way toward the noisy, boisterous festival. He had to lure the three footmen away from the motorcycles.

Divide and conquer.

Sliding across the roof of a van, Gray surveyed the congested sea of humanity behind him. Only this sea had a new shark in its waters now. Gray could not spot Kowalski, but he witnessed the man’s handiwork. Farther back, the lead motorcycle edged alongside a truck. When it reached the front, the cyclist suddenly jerked upright, his body shaking. Gray heard a distant pop-pop-pop, like the celebratory firecrackers that echoed from the festival.

The driver and cycle sank into the churning sea.

Kowalski remained hidden. With the hunters’ eyes on Gray’s flight, it was easy for the large man to drop back, lie in wait, then jab his stolen M4 carbine into the rider as he passed. Point-blank, muffled.

But the shark wasn’t done hunting these seas.

Gray left the large man to his bloody work and continued toward the confusion and chaos that was the festival. It sang, danced, cheered, laughed, and screamed. Music blew from horns and rang out with the clash of cymbals. It was the festival of Janmashtami, a celebration of the birth of Krishna.

From his vantage, he spotted patches of folks dancing the Ras Lila, a traditional Manipuri dance representing Krishna’s early, mischievous years when he had dalliances with milkmaids. The packed crowds were also dotted with piles of young men forming human pyramids, striving to reach clay pots strung high across the street. The pots, called dahi-handi, were filled with curd and butter. The game reenacted Krishna’s childish exploits, when he and his boyhood friends used to steal butter from neighbors.

Gray heard the traditional chant of support.

“Govinda! Govinda!”

Another name for Krishna.

Gray raced across the top of vehicles toward the festival. With the road ahead blocked off and traffic diverted, Gray’s high road ended at the street party. He leaped off the hood of the last taxi and into the crowd.

As he landed amid the mass of revelers, he shed the white hat and coat, removing his disguise and blending into the crowd. He kept the cane in one hand and his pistol pressed to his thigh as he pushed through the masses of people. He aimed for the edge of the festival where shops and food wagons crowded with patrons lined the street square.

The plan was to regroup with Kowalski at the northwest corner of the square. They dared not continue to the rendezvous at the fort until they knew they’d shaken their tail. Gray reached a building with a fire escape. The metal ladder was pulled down, the balconies crowded with people enjoying the festival below. Gray climbed to the second floor for a good vantage place to observe the crowds and watch for Kowalski.

Reaching the level, Gray spotted one of his pursuers as he leaped from the hood of a truck into the mass of the festival. His other two compatriots were already in the mix, readily discernible by their black helmets. One bent down and lifted a soiled, trampled white hat. He threw it away in disgust and frustration.

Gray hoped they’d realize the hopelessness of their situation and retreat. But nothing was ever that easy.

Kowalski burst into the crowd. His suit jacket was a rumpled ruin. His hands were empty, his cheek bloody. But his worst feature was his height. The man stood a head and shoulder higher than the average partier. He surveyed the crowd with a hand shielding his eyes against the glare as he pushed through the sea of revelry.

Only this time, Kowalski wasn’t the shark in the waters.

One of the helmeted men pointed in the big man’s direction, recognizing him. They closed in on him from all directions.

Not good.

Gray turned, but the balcony had grown even more crowded, the ladder jammed up with people. He’d never reach the center of the crowd in time.

Twisting back around, Gray mounted the top of the balcony’s railing, then leaped off it—straight up.

Overhead, a thick, oily wire was strung from the balcony above and across the square. Gray swept his arm high and hooked the ivory handle of the cane to the wire. His momentum and swing of his legs sent him skating along the wire, weighted down in the center by one of the large clay dahi-handi pots. He clutched the cane and swung his other arm straight down.

As his heels passed over the head of one of the helmeted hunters, Gray fired between his legs. The impact pounded the man to the ground, the helmet shattering like a walnut shell.

Then Gray hit the top of the human pyramid that was climbing for the clay pot. He knocked the topmost man down a peg and took his place at the top. As he scrabbled to keep from falling, the cane went toppling down the side of the pyramid—along with Gray’s pistol.

Faces stared up at him.

Including the remaining two gunmen.

Weaponless, Gray balanced on the shoulders of the man below him and shoved up. He grabbed the bottom of the large clay pot, unhooked it, and with a silent prayer to Krishna, he lobbed it down at the nearest gunman.

His prayer was answered.

The heavy pot hit the man square in his upraised face, exploding with a wash of shards and butter. He went down hard.

The third gunman lifted his arm, cradling a pistol. As the crowd screamed, he fired two shots at Gray—but Gray was no longer there. The human pyramid crumpled under him. Bullets whined past the top of his head as he fell.

He landed in a tangle of limbs.

Gray struggled around, trying to find a footing. The gunman stalked toward the human dog pile, his gun raised. Before he could fire, a flash of white blurred in front. The man’s head cracked back, struck in the face by the ivory handle of Masterson’s cane. Kowalski had wielded the recovered cane like a batter swinging for the bleachers.

Blood spurted, and the man fell straight-backed to the pavement.

Kowalski snatched up the man’s pistol and extended the cane across the tangle of limbs and men. Gray grabbed the handle, and Kowalski pulled him free.

“Death by butter,” the large man said. “Not bad, Pierce. Puts new meaning to watching your cholesterol.”

All around, the square had erupted in chaos. People fled in all directions. Uniformed police tried to wade against the human tide. Gray and Kowalski, now huddled low, allowed themselves to be dragged by the current out of the square and into the neighboring streets.

After a few harried minutes, the massive bulk of the red sandstone fort rose ahead of them, perched on the banks of the Yamuna River. They crossed toward the ancient walled structure—Akbar’s Fort—a major tourist attraction of the city, second only to the Taj Mahal.

Taxis, vans, and limousines lined the avenue before it.

“Pierce!” a shout called to him.

Shay Rosauro waved from beside one of the limousines, a long white whale. He marched over to her. Luca stood at the open door. Masterson and Elizabeth were already inside.

“Not exactly inconspicuous,” Gray said, eyeing the vehicle.

“Should hold all of us,” Rosauro explained—then offered a sly smile. “Besides, who says we can’t pimp our ride a little?”

“Lady knows what she’s talking about,” Kowalski said and strode toward the front. “Maybe they’ll let me drive it.”

“No!” echoed from both Gray and Rosauro.

With a wounded frown, Kowalski returned and ducked into the back of the limo. Rosauro followed.

Before joining them, Gray searched the sidewalks, the streets. No one seemed to be paying attention. Hopefully they’d shaken their tail completely. He craned around and stared across the curve of the river.

Off in the distance, the white marble of the mausoleum glowed with sunlight, peaceful and eternal, slumbering beside the bright water.

Gray turned his back on the Taj Mahal.

Only the dead slept so peacefully.

As he entered the back of the limousine, Masterson let out a gasp of outrage. “What did you do to my cane?”

Gray fell into his seat. The eighteenth-century ivory handle was bloody. The fine detail of the carved crane had been ground smooth from its ride across the braided wire.

“The cane is the least of your worries, Professor,” Gray said.

Masterson glowered at him as the limo pulled from the curb.

Gray pointed to the man’s bandaged ear. “Someone’s trying to kill you. The question, Dr. Masterson, is why.”

Chapter 10

September 6, 7:45 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Loose ends,” Trent McBride explained. “There are too many of them.”

Yuri saw the man glance in his direction, but he didn’t flinch. Let them kill him. It did not matter. Yuri sat in an office chair. They’d allowed him to dress again after removing the electrodes. His fiery torture had continued for another twenty minutes. Yuri had not held back. He’d divulged much, confessing more details about the genetics of the children, the secret he and Savina had kept from the Americans.

He even admitted why the Russians had not objected to Dr. Archibald Polk’s recruitment. Yuri admitted that Polk had been getting too close to the heart of the genetic secret. Savina had already planned to orchestrate an accident while the man was at the Warren, to silence him.

But in this game of scientific brinkmanship, neither he nor Savina imagined that Polk’s own colleague and friend would arrange his escape, all to lure one of their children out into the open.

And Savina had taken the bait. She cared little that Polk had escaped with the skull, which McBride had given him. It was the genetic secret he held that had panicked Savina into sending Yuri and Sasha into the hunt for the man. She had fallen cleanly into the American’s trap.

“Loose ends?” Mapplethorpe asked, drawing back his attention. He shook his head, unconcerned. “I see only three. The girl, the skull, and Polk’s trail in India. The last is already being handled. And I’ve heard rumblings through intelligence channels that our missing skull might mysteriously turn up.”

“How did you manage that?” McBride asked.

“Get waters boiling just right, and you’ll be surprised what will come to the surface.”

“And the girl?”

Yuri paid more attention. Mapplethorpe’s gaze flicked to him. Yuri knew the only reason he was still alive was because of Sasha. Mapplethorpe needed him, knew about her medical condition, about a problem seen in all the children. The stress of the mental manipulation was not without physical consequences to the subjects. In fact, few lived far into their twenties, especially those with the most savant talent. It was a problem that required harvesting eggs and sperm to keep the strongest genetic line viable.

Mapplethorpe sighed. “We should have the girl before the sun sets…if not sooner.”

And you’ll still be too late, Yuri thought.

So simple these Americans, so quick to assume that what was tortured testimony was the whole story. While Yuri had not lied, he had committed one sin: a sin of omission. In fact, McBride hadn’t even known the question to ask, so secure was he in his superiority and his sadistic trust in the power of pain.

Yuri kept his face stoic. They sought to break him with their tortures, but he was an old man, one used to keeping secrets. All they’d accomplished was to harden his core for what was to come. In the past months, Yuri had started to have reservations about Savina’s plan.

It was only natural.

Millions would die in horrible ways.

All for a new world to be born.

A new Renaissance.

Yuri stared at Mapplethorpe’s self-satisfied smirk and at McBride’s bright-eyed confidence.

All hesitation died inside him.

Savina was right.

It was time for the world to burn.

2:55 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

General-Major Savina Martov knew something was wrong. She felt it in her bones, a nonspecific anxiety. She could no longer remain in her office. She needed reassurances.

With a radio held to the side of her face, she led two soldiers through the dark and abandoned streets that cut through the old Soviet-era apartments that filled the back half of the Chelyabinsk 88 cavern. The featureless concrete blocks that rose to either side were the original housing for prisoners who worked the mines and refinement plants. The men had traded life sentences in the gulags for five years’ work here. Not that any of them ever saw that fifth year. Most died from radiation before the end of their first year.

A foolish gamble, but then again, hope could turn any rational man desperate. This was the legacy she had inherited. It served as a reminder.

Others thought her cruel, but sometimes necessity could wear no other face. The children were well fed, their needs attended. Pain was minimized as much as humanly possible.

Cruelty?

She stared around at the hollow-eyed apartments, cold, dark, haunted.

All she saw was necessity.

The radio fritzed at her ear as Lieutenant Borsakov came back online. So far she had heard only negative reports from the second in command. He was still searching the surrounding mountains and foothills for the children. He’d been led astray by several false trails, discovering a discarded hospital shirt.

“We found two dead dogs,” Borsakov said. “By the river. They’d been torn to shreds. Bear attack. But we’ve picked up a strong trail.”

“And what about the cats?” she asked, speaking into a radio.

Silence stretched for a moment.

“Lieutenant,” she said more firmly.

“We were holding off sending them until we had a clear trail. Didn’t want to risk the dogs with the tigers ranging the hills.”

He kept his voice practical, but Savina recognized the strained edge behind his words. The lieutenant was not so much concerned with the dogs as he was the children.

Why did she always have to be the hard one?

She spoke crisply. “You have a strong trail now, do you not, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, General-Major.”

“Then do not disappoint me again.”

“No, General-Major.”

She clicked off the line. She may have been harsher than she intended, but she’d already heard disturbing news in the past hour.

A maintenance worker from the neighboring town of Ozyorsk had discovered one of the Warren’s decommissioned trucks, one once used to transport waste from a uranium enrichment plant near the shore of Lake Karachay. Inside, the worker had found a fake badge with Dr. Archibald Polk’s face.

It answered the mystery of the professor’s escape.

He’d had help.

And it didn’t take much contemplation to figure out who had assisted in his escape. It had to be Dr. Trent McBride. What game were the Americans playing? With Yuri’s continuing silence, she could only imagine that he and the girl had been captured. In fact, the escape might have been staged to accomplish just that end.

If so, Savina had to respect McBride for such an effort.

Like her, he understood necessity.

In retrospect, she should have never engaged in a partnership with the United States. But she’d had little choice at the time. In the turmoil following the breakup of the Soviet Union, her project had lost all funding. It was only through such a union that her work was allowed to continue.

The United States supplied the interim cash, seeking new ways to expand their ability to gather intelligence. Her project offered such a promise. But her project also offered one thing more. She supplied the American government with plausible deniability, similar to the secret CIA-financed torture camps in Europe. In this new world, the lines of acceptable conduct—whether military or scientific—had become blurred.

Not on our soil was the new American credo.

And she’d been happy at the time to exploit that.

Still, the loss of Yuri and the child was not insurmountable. It only required accelerating her timetable. Her operation—titled Saturn—was supposed to follow Nicolas’s actions in Chernobyl by a week. Now the two would commence on the same day.

Tomorrow.

The two operations—Uranus and Saturn—were named after two strategic offenses during World War II, when Soviet forces defeated the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle in human history. Close to two million were killed in that battle, including vast numbers of civilian casualties. Still, the Germans’ defeat was considered the turning point of the war.

A glorious victory for the Motherland.

And as in the past, Operation Uranus and Saturn would once again free Russia and change the course of world history.

And likewise, not without casualties.

Necessity was a cruel master.

Savina reached the far wall of the cavern. A tunnel opened, framed by thick lead blast doors, miniature versions of the same doors that closed the main tunnel into Chelyabinsk 88.

Just inside the mouth of the tunnel rested a train and bumper stops. The electrified tracks carried a single train back and forth between the Warren and the heart of Operation Saturn, on the far side of Lake Karachay. The old tunnel went under the toxic lake, allowing for fast transport between the two sites without risk of exposure to the lake’s hot radiological soup of strontium 90 and cesium 137.

The train was already waiting for her.

Savina climbed into one of the lead-lined cabs. There were only two enclosed cars, one on either end of the train. The remaining four sections were open ore cars for hauling supplies, mining gear, and rocks.

As the train sidled out with a clack of wheels and sizzle of electricity, the blast doors sealed behind her. The tunnel went dark. She stared up as the train began the five-minute journey. As it accelerated, Savina pictured the weight of water overhead, insulated by a quarter mile of rock.

The region above was the heart of the Soviet Union’s uranium and plutonium production. Mostly now defunct, the facility had once had seven active plutonium production reactors and three plutonium separation plants. It was all sloppily run. Since 1948, the production facilities had leaked five times more radiation than Chernobyl and all of the world’s atmospheric nuclear tests combined.

And half that radiation was still stored in Lake Karachay.

The radiation level on the lake’s shore measured six hundred roentgens per hour. Sufficient to deliver a lethal dose in one hour.

Savina remembered where the maintenance worker from Ozyorsk had found Dr. Archibald Polk’s abandoned truck.

On the shore of that lake.

She shook her head. There had been no need to hunt down Dr. Polk. He’d been dead already.

Lights appeared ahead.

It glowed with the hope for a brighter future.

The heart of Operation Saturn.

3:15 P.M.

“They’re planning on doing what?” Monk said, a bit too loudly as he walked alongside the riverbank.

He and the kids had been walking alongside the churning river for the past hour. It was not the same waterway as where they’d encountered the bear. Monk had forded that turbulent stream by using a series of boulders and followed it down to this larger river, buried in a dense fir forest. Monk had studied the topographic map several times. It seemed they were following along the watershed that drained the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains. On the western side, the Urals shed their rainwater and snowmelt into the Caspian Sea; on this side, it all flowed into a region of massive rivers and hundreds of lakes, all of which eventually emptied into the Arctic Ocean.

What the Russians were planning…

Shock had rung in his voice.

Konstantin winced at his sharpness.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said more quietly, knowing voices traveled far in the mountains. He had been the one to warn the children to speak only in whispers. He obeyed his own rule now, though his voice was still strained. “Even with the hole in my memory, I know what they’re planning is madness.”

“They will succeed,” Konstantin countered matter-of-factly. “It is not difficult. A simple strategy. We”—he waved to Pyotr and Kiska, then in a general motion behind him, indicating the other children like him at the underground compound—“have run scenarios and models, judged probable outcomes, analyzed statistical global data, studied environmental impact, and extrapolated end results. It is far from madness.”

Monk listened to the boy. He sounded more like a computer than a teenager. Then again, Monk remembered the cold steel behind Konstantin’s ear. They all had them. Even Marta bore a thumb-size block of surgical steel buried in the fur behind her ear. During the past hour, Konstantin had also used the time to demonstrate his skill at calculations. The mental exercise had seemed to calm him. Kiska showed him how she could identify a bird’s song and mimic it in perfect pitch.

Only Pyotr seemed shy about his abilities.

“Empath,” Konstantin had explained. “He can read someone’s emotions, even when they’re hiding it, or acting contrarily. One teacher said he was a living lie detector. Because of this, he prefers the company of animals, spends much of his time at the Menagerie. He’s the one who insisted we bring Marta.”

Monk stared at where the boy walked with the elderly chimpanzee. He had been studying the boy, watching how he interacted. The two seemed to be in constant communication, silent glances, a pinch of brow or pucker of lip, a swing of arm.

He watched Pyotr suddenly stiffen and stop. Marta did, too. Pyotr swung to Konstantin and spoke in a rush, a frightened babble, first in Russian, then English. His small eyes turned up to Monk, searching for some miraculous salvation.

“They’re here,” the boy whispered.

Monk didn’t have to ask who Pyotr meant. It was plain from the raw terror in his voice.

Arkady and Zakhar.

The two Siberian tigers.

“Go!” Monk said. They ran down the riverbank. Konstantin led the way. His sister, Kiska, as fleet-footed as a gazelle, followed behind him. Monk allowed Konstantin to pick the best path through the blueberry bushes, scraggly brush, and boulders that lined the riverbanks. Monk kept a watch on their back trail. He had to be careful. Streams of straw-yellow spruce needles flowed from the thick forest to the river’s edge and created patches as slick as ice underfoot.

Pyotr slipped on a patch and landed hard on his backside. Marta scooped him under a hairy arm and got him back on his feet. Monk herded them forward. Konstantin and Kiska widened the distance ahead of them.

They ran for five minutes, but exhaustion quickly began to slow them. Even adrenaline and terror fired you for only so long. Ten minutes more and they were slogging at a stumbling half trot.

The group closed together again.

There remained no sound of pursuit, no crash of branches or snap of twigs. No sign of the tigers.

Konstantin, panting and red-faced, glared at Pyotr and spoke harshly in Russian, plainly berating the boy for the false alarm.

Monk waved Konstantin off. “It’s not his fault,” he gasped out.

Pyotr wore a wounded yet still terrified expression.

Marta hooted softly, bumping Konstantin.

Kiska also scolded her brother in Russian.

Monk had been warned that Pyotr could not judge distances well, only intent. He had to trust that when the tigers got really close—

—Pyotr went ramrod stiff, his eyes huge.

He opened his mouth, but terror choked him silent.

No words were necessary.

“Now!” Monk screamed.

Turning as one, they all ran—straight for the swift-flowing river as planned. Monk grabbed Pyotr, hugged him tight, and leaped from the bank. He heard twin splashes as Kiska and Konstantin hit the water downstream a few yards.

Monk surfaced in the icy-cold flow with the boy clinging like a vine to his neck. He twisted in time to see Marta swing up into the branches of a tree, climbing fast.

Deeper in the forest…motion…swift…a flash of fiery fur…

Monk kicked for the deepest and fastest current. He spotted Marta leaping from one tree to another in the dense forest. Chimpanzees could not swim and had no natural buoyancy. She had to take another path.

Forest shadows shattered as a huge shape burst into view, low, muzzle rippling, paws wide, striped tail high and stiff.

The tiger leaped straight from the riverbank at Monk.

He back-paddled and kicked, dragged by the weight of his pack and the boy. Pyotr tightened his arms, strangling him.

The tiger flew, legs out wide, black claws bared, a scream of feral fury.

Monk could not swim fast enough.

But the river’s flow made up for it.

The tiger crashed into the water a few yards away, missing its prey.

Monk angled into a swift channel between two boulders. He got dumped into a churning hole, thrown down deep, then back up again.

Pyotr choked and coughed.

Monk twisted and spotted the tiger thrashing upriver. It spun in an eddy of current. Despite the myths of cats and water, tigers were not averse to water. Still, the beast paddled for the shore. It was not how cats hunted.

Cats were all about the ambush.

The tigers had plainly stalked them, following them quietly through the forest as they fled away, driven by Pyotr’s initial warning. The boy had been right. Following age-old instincts and cunning, the pair had tracked them, waited until their prey had tired before charging. Tigers were sprinters, not long-distance runners. They timed their charge so they could strike at the perfect moment.

Along the river’s edge, another tiger appeared, stalking back and forth, thwarted. The first cat hauled out of the river, waterlogged and drenched. It shook its laden pelt and sprayed water.

Monk got a good look at the pair. Though still muscular, they looked emaciated, starved. Their fur had a ragged appearance. He noted matching steel skullcaps, like on the wolves. One tiger’s ear was gnarled, shredded from an old hunting injury. Zakhar, according to Konstantin’s description. Born siblings, it was the only way they could be told apart.

In a single smooth motion, as if responding to a silent whistle, the pair turned and vanished into the darkness.

Monk knew it wasn’t over.

The hunt was just beginning.

He twisted and saw Konstantin and Kiska disappear around a bend in the river. Monk sidestroked after them. Pyotr shivered against him. Monk knew the boy was not trembling from the cold, nor even from fear of the tigers. His huge, panicked eyes were not on the riverbank, but on the flow of water all around him.

What was terrifying him?

3:35 P.M.

Pyotr clung to the large man. He kept his arms tight around his neck, his legs around his waist. Water flowed all around him, filling his world. He tasted it on his lips, felt it in his ears, smelled its sweetness and green rot. Its ice cold cut to his bones.

He could not swim.

Like Marta.

He searched the far bank as it swept past, searching for his friend.

Pyotr knew much of his fear of water came from her heart. Deep water was death to her. He had felt the quickening thud of her heart when they crossed on the boulders earlier today, saw the tightening of her jaw, the glassy wideness to her eyes.

Her terror was his.

Pyotr clasped tighter to the man.

But the true heart of Marta’s terror lay deeper than any sea. He had known it from the moment she had come to his bedside, laying a lined paw upon his sheets, inviting friendship. Most thought she had come to comfort him as he recovered from his first surgery.

But in that long breathless moment, staring into her caramel-brown eyes, Pyotr had known her secret. She had come to him, seeking comfort for herself, reassurance from him.

From that moment, terror and love had bonded them equally.

Along with a dark secret.

4:28 P.M.
New Delhi, India

“Did you know man can see into the future?” Dr. Hayden Masterson asked as he tapped at the computer.

Gray stirred from studying the depths of his coffee. The group shared one of the private rooms at the Delhi Internet Café and Video. Kowalski leaned against the frosted glass door, ensuring their privacy. He picked at an adhesive bandage on his chin. Elizabeth had tended to the man’s scrapes and was now stacking the pages coming out of the laser printer beside the workstation. It was just the four of them. Rosauro and Luca had gone out to rent them a new car for the journey ahead.

Though Gray still wasn’t sure where they were going.

That all depended on Masterson—and he wasn’t in a talking mood. The professor had spoken hardly a word since they’d escaped from the attack at the hotel. Attempts to draw the man out, to get him to reveal why he might be the target of assassination, had only seemed to make him withdraw.

He just continued to study the marred ivory handle of his cane. His eyes glazed—not with shock, but in deep concentration.

Elizabeth had given Gray a quiet shake of her head.

Don’t press him.

So they’d driven north out of Agra, aiming for the capital of India, New Delhi. During the ninety-mile trek, Gray had them change vehicles twice along the way.

Once they reached the teeming outskirts of the city, Masterson had given only one instruction: I need access to a computer.

So here they were, in a cramped back room of an Internet café. The professor had promptly logged on to a private address on the University of Mumbai’s Web site, requiring three levels of code to access it.

“Archibald’s research,” Masterson had explained and had begun printing it all out. He had remained silent until this cryptic statement about mankind seeing the future.

“How do you mean?” Gray asked.

Masterson pushed back from his workstation. “Well, many people don’t know this, but it’s been scientifically proven in the last couple of years that man has the ability to see a short span into the future. About three seconds or so.”

“Three seconds?” Kowalski said. “Lot of good that’ll do you.”

“It does plenty,” Masterson replied.

Gray frowned at Kowalski and turned back to the professor. “But what do you mean by scientifically proven?”

“Are you familiar with the CIA’s Stargate project?”

Gray shared a glance with Elizabeth. “The project Dr. Polk worked on for a while.”

“Another researcher on the project, Dr. Dean Radin, performed a series of experiments on volunteers. He wired them up with lie detectors, measuring skin conductivity, and began showing them a series of images on a screen. A random mix of horrible and soothing photos. The violent and explicit images would trigger a strong response on the lie detector, an electronic wince. After a few minutes, the subjects began to wince before a horrible image would appear on the screen, reacting up to three seconds in advance. It happened time and again. Other scientists, including Nobel Prize winners, repeated these tests at both Edinburgh and Cornell universities. With the same statistical results.”

Elizabeth shook her head with disbelief. “How could that be?”

Masterson shrugged. “I have no idea. But the experiment was extended to gamblers, too. They were monitored while playing cards. They began showing the same pattern, reacting seconds before a card would turn over. A positive response when the turn was favorable, and negative when it wasn’t. This so intrigued a Nobel-winning physicist from Cambridge University that he performed a more elaborate study, hooking such test subjects to MRI scanners in order to study their brain activity. He found that the source of this premonition seemed to lie in the brain. This Nobel Prize winner—and keep in mind, not some bloody quack—concluded that ordinary people can see for short spans into the future.”

“That’s amazing,” Elizabeth said.

Masterson fixed her with a steady stare. “It’s what drove your father,” he said gently. “To determine how and why this could be. If ordinary people could see for three seconds into the future, why not longer? Hours, days, weeks, years. For physicists, such a concept is not beyond comprehension. Even Albert Einstein once said that the difference between the past and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time is just another dimension, like distance. We have no trouble looking forward or backward along a path. So why not along time, too?”

Gray pictured the strange girl. Her charcoal sketch of the Taj Mahal. If man could look through time, as Dr. Masterson reported, then why not across great distances? He remembered Director Crowe’s statement about the successes the CIA project had with remote viewing.

“All it would take,” Masterson said, “would be to find those rare individuals who could see farther than the ordinary. To study them.”

Or exploit them, Gray thought, still thinking of the girl.

Elizabeth passed the last page from the printer to the stack. She handed it to Masterson. “My father…he was looking for these rare individuals.”

“No, my dear, he wasn’t looking for them.”

Elizabeth’s eyes pinched in confusion.

Masterson patted her hand. “Your father found them.”

Gray perked up. “What?”

A knock on the door interrupted the professor before he could explain. Kowalski shifted, checked who it was, and opened the door.

Rosauro poked in her head and passed to Gray a heavy set of rental keys. “All done in here?”

“No,” Gray answered.

Masterson bowled past him with an armload of papers under his arm. “Yes, we are.”

Gray rolled his eyes and waved to the others. “C’mon.”

He followed, mentally strangling the irascible professor.

Kowalski kept to Gray’s side. “He’s just getting even,” the large man said and nodded to the walking stick under Masterson’s other arm. “For what you did to his cane.”

They exited the Internet café and found Luca Hearn leaning on the hood of a pewter-colored Mercedes-Benz G55 SUV. It looked like a tank.

Rosauro circled around to the front. She already had a hand raised against his objections. “Okay, it’s not inconspicuous. I know. But I didn’t know where we were going or how fast we might need to get there.”

Kowalski grinned much too widely. “Or how many Hondas we might need to run over.”

“It’s got four-wheel drive, almost five hundred horses…and…and…” She shrugged. “I liked it.”

Kowalski passed her to inspect the car. “Oh, yeah, from now on, Rosauro picks out all our transportation!”

Gray sighed and stepped toward Dr. Masterson. “Where to now?”

The professor was studying the stack of papers and waved his cane toward the north, plainly irritated. Gray waited for more details, but got none.

Elizabeth’s warning echoed in his head. Don’t press him…

Giving up, Gray pointed to the SUV. He had no time to argue. They’d been in one place too long already. He wanted to keep moving, even if he didn’t know exactly where. If anyone had put a tracer on the University of Mumbai’s Web site, they could be zeroing in on them right now.

“Load up,” Gray ordered.

Kowalski cupped his hands for the keys.

Gray tossed them to Rosauro instead.

Kowalski glowered at him. “You are just plain evil.”

5:06 P.M.

Elizabeth could wait no longer. Going against her own advice, she turned to Dr. Masterson. “Hayden, enough of your games. What did you mean when you said my father found those people?”

“Just what I said, my dear.”

The professor sat in the center of the SUV’s middle row, flanked by Elizabeth and Gray. Pen in hand, Hayden had been sifting through the printouts for the past ten minutes. Rosauro glanced back at them from the driver’s seat. Kowalski sulked in the passenger seat with his arms stubbornly crossed.

Luca stirred behind them and leaned forward to listen.

Hayden explained, “Your father spent the past decade collecting and comparing DNA samples from the most promising yogis and mystics of India. He traveled far and wide, from north to south. He collated reams of data, cross-referenced genetic code. He ran a statistical model analyzing mental ability versus genetic variance.”

“He tested Luca’s people, too,” Elizabeth said.

The Gypsy made a noise of agreement.

“Because they rose from the Punjab region,” Hayden said.

“Why is that important?” Gray asked.

“Let me show you.” The professor searched the stack for half a minute, then pulled out one sheet. “Your father, Elizabeth, was a true genius, vastly underappreciated by his peers. He was able to pinpoint three genes that seemed to be common to those who showed the strongest traits. Like many scientific breakthroughs, such a discovery was equal parts brilliance and luck. He came upon these genes when he noted that many of the most talented individuals seemed to show signs of autism in varying degrees.”

“Autism?” Elizabeth asked. “Why autism?”

“Because the debilitating mental condition, while compromising social functioning, can often produce some astounding savant abilities.” Hayden patted her knee. “Did you know that many of the key figures in history displayed autistic tendencies?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

He ticked names off, using his fingers. “In the arts, that included Michelangelo, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, along with Beethoven and Mozart. In science, you have Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton. In politics, Thomas Jefferson. Even Nostradamus was believed to be autistic to some degree.”

“Nostradamus?” Gray asked. “The French astrologer?”

Hayden nodded. “Such individuals have changed history, improved mankind, moved us forward. There’s a line Archibald loved to quote. From Dr. Temple Grandin, a bestselling writer with autism. ‘If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.’ And I believe she was right.”

“And my father?”

“Most definitely. Your father came to believe that there was a direct connection between autism and his own studies into intuition and presentiment.”

“And he found this connection?” Gray said.

The professor sighed. “While we don’t know the exact cause for autism, most scientists agree that there are ten different genes that potentially contribute to the appearance of the condition. So Archibald ran these ten genes through his statistical model and discovered three of these genes were common among all those with high talent. It was the breakthrough he had been looking for. With these three genetic markers, he began to trace geographically the frequency of these markers in the general population. He came up with a map.”

The professor passed Elizabeth the sheet of paper on his lap. It was a map of India. Across the breadth of it were hundreds of small dots.

Elizabeth studied it, then handed it to Gray.

Hayden explained, “Each dot represents an individual bearing the genetic marker. But if you look closely, you’ll see how many dots appear around major cities, like Delhi and Mumbai. Which only makes sense, since there are many people living in those cities.”

“But what about up here?” Gray asked and pointed toward the north.

Elizabeth knew what Gray was asking about. A large number of dots—more than anywhere else—clustered to the north, where no major city was marked.

“Exactly. Archibald wondered the same.” Hayden took the map back and tapped the cluster to the north. “He concentrated the last three years of his life in that area. He sought to discover why this dense cluster appears up there.”

“What’s there?” she asked.

“The Punjab.” The answer came from behind Elizabeth. From Luca Hearn. “The original homeland of the Romani.”

“Indeed. It is why Archibald contacted the Gypsy clans in Europe and the United States. He found it rather coincidental that such a rich history of prophecy and fortune-telling would arise from the same spot and spread to Europe and beyond. He sought to see if his genetic marker could be found among the Gypsies.”

“Was it?” Elizabeth posed the question to both Hayden and Luca.

Hayden answered, “Yes, but not in the concentrations he was suspecting. It disappointed your father.”

Luca made a noncommittal noise.

She turned to him. “What?”

“There was a reason,” Luca said.

Gray twisted around. “What do you mean?”

“It was why we hired Dr. Polk.”

Elizabeth remembered that the Gypsy clan leader had never fully elaborated on the matter. He’d started to explain on the airplane, but they had been interrupted.

“As I told you before, Dr. Polk sought to collect blood samples from our most gifted chovihanis. Not fakers, but real seers. But there were few among us who still met this criteria.”

“Why?”

“Because the heart of our people was stolen from us.”

Slowly and in a grim voice, Luca continued, telling a tale of a deep secret among his clans, one that went back centuries. The secret concerned one clan among all the others, one that was most cherished. It was forbidden even to speak of them to gadje, to outsiders. The clan was kept separate, hidden, protected by the other clans. It was the true source of the Gypsies’ heritage of prophecy. On rare occasions, some of these chovihanis would move and live among the other clans, sharing their talents, taking husbands or wives. But mostly they remained insular and apart. Then nearly fifty years ago, the clan was discovered. Every man and woman was slaughtered, butchered, and buried in a shallow, frozen grave.

Luca’s words grew especially bitter. “Only in that mass grave, there were no bones of any children.”

Elizabeth understood the impact. “Someone took them.”

“We never discovered who…but we never stopped looking. We had hoped that Dr. Polk with his new way of tracking—by DNA—might find a trail that had long gone cold.”

“Was he successful?” Elizabeth asked.

Luca shook his head. “Not that he ever revealed. He did send one odd query a few months ago. He wanted to know more about our status as untouchables, the casteless of India.”

Elizabeth didn’t know what that meant. She glanced to Hayden, but the professor shrugged. Still, she noted something in his expression, a narrowing of his eyes. He knew something.

But instead of explaining, he marked a small x on the map with his pen.

“What’s that?” Elizabeth asked, noting how it lay in the middle of the cluster of dots in the Punjab region.

“It’s where we must go next if we want answers.”

“And where’s that?” Gray pressed.

“To the place where Archibald vanished.”

Chapter 11

September 6, 5:38 P.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Nicolas crossed through the ghost town’s amusement park.

Old yellow bumper cars sat in pools of stagnant green water, amid waist-high weeds. The roof of the ride had long since collapsed, leaving a frame of red corrosion arched over it. Ahead, the park’s giant Ferris wheel—the Big Dipper—rose into the late-afternoon sky, limned against the low sun. Its yellow umbrella chairs hung idle from the rusted skeleton. A symbol and monument to the ruin left behind in the wake of Chernobyl.

Nicolas continued on.

The park had been built in anticipation of the celebrations of May Day back in 1986. Instead, a week prior to the celebration, the city of Pripyat, home to forty-eight thousand workers and their families, was killed, smothered under a veil of radiation. The city, built in the 1970s, had been a shining example of Soviet architecture and urban living: the Energetic Theater, the palatial Polissia Hotel, a state-of-the-art hospital, scores of schools.

The theater lay now in ruins. The hotel had birch trees growing out of its roof. The schools had become crumbled shells, piled with moldy textbooks, old dolls, and wooden toy blocks. In one room, Nicolas had seen piles of discarded gas masks, lying in limp heaps like the scalped faces of the dead. The once vibrant city had been reduced to broken windows, collapsed walls, old bed frames, and peeling paint. Weeds and trees grew wild everywhere, cracking apart what man had built. Now only tours came here, four hundred dollars a head to explore the haunted place.

And the cause of it all…

Nicolas shaded his eyes and stared. He could just make out on the horizon a hazy bump, two miles off.

The Chernobyl power plant.

The explosion of reactor number four had cast a plume that wrapped the world. Yet here, the evacuation order was delayed for thirty hours. The forest around the city turned red with radioactive dust. Townspeople swept their porches and balconies to keep them clean while plutonium fires burned two miles away.

Nicolas shook his head, mostly because he knew a news crew followed him, rolling B-roll footage for the evening news. Nicolas strode through the amusement park. He had been warned to stay on the fresh asphalt strip that crossed the ruins of the abandoned town. The radiation levels spiked higher if you tread out into the mossy stretches of the urban wasteland. The worst zones were marked off with triangular yellow signs. The new asphalt path had been laid to accommodate the flood of dignitaries, officials, and newspeople that were descending on Chernobyl in anticipation of the installation of the new steel Sarcophagus over its decaying concrete shell.

By this evening, the showplace Polissia Hotel would return to a tarnished bit of its former glory. The hotel’s ballroom had been hastily renovated, cleared, and cleaned to host a formal black-tie party tonight. Even the birch trees growing out of the roof had been cut down for the event.

Nothing but the best for their international guests. There would be representatives from almost every nation, even a handful of stars from Hollywood. Pripyat would shine for this one night, a bright gala in the center of a radiological ruin.

Both the Russian president and prime minister would be in attendance, along with many members from the upper and lower house of Federal Assembly. Many were already here, making halfhearted assertions of change and reform, attempting to churn political currency from this momentous event.

But no one had been more vocal and vehement for a true change than Senator Nicolas Solokov. And after this morning’s assassination attempt, he had the spotlight shining him full in the face.

As the cameras taped him, Nicolas stepped off the asphalt walkway and crossed to a neighboring wall. Upon its surface had been painted a stark black shadow of a pair of children playing with a toy truck. It was said a mad Frenchman had spent months in Pripyat. His shadow art could be found throughout the city, haunting and disturbing, representing the ghosts of the lost children.

His own personal shadow, Elena, remained upon the asphalt walk. She had already chosen this particular piece of art to be the most poignant. Earlier she had scouted the zone with a dosimeter to make sure the radiation levels were safe.

It was all about showmanship this evening.

Nicolas leaned a hand on the wall. He traced the children’s form with a finger. He pressed the back of his wrist to one eye. Elena had already dabbed the sleeve of his suit jacket with drops of ammonia. The sting drew the required tears.

He turned to the cameras, his fingers still on the cheek of the shadow child. “This is why we must change,” he said and waved his hand to encompass the city. “How can anyone look across this blasted landscape and not know that our great country must move into a new era? We must put all this behind us—yet never forget.”

He wiped his cheek and hardened his countenance—a few tears were fine, but he did not want to appear weak. His voice growled toward the microphones. “Look at this city! What man has ruined, nature consumes. Some have called this place Chernobyl’s Garden of Eden. Is it not a handsome forest that has taken over the city? Birds sing. Deer roam in great abundance. But know that the wolves have also returned.”

He stared toward the darkening horizon. “Do not be fooled by the beauty here. It still remains a radioactive garden. We all crossed through the two military checkpoints to enter the thirty-kilometer-wide Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. We all passed the two thousand vehicles used to put out Chernobyl’s radioactive blaze. Firetrucks, aircraft, ambulances, still too hot to get near. We all wear our dosimeter badges. So do not be deceived. Nature has returned, but it will suffer for generations. What appears healthy and vital is not. This is not rebirth. Only false hope. For a true rebirth, we must look in new directions, toward new goals, toward a new Renaissance.”

He turned again to the shadowy children. He shook his head.

“How could we not?” he finished sadly.

Someone along the roadway clapped.

Faced away from the camera, Nicolas smiled. As camera flashes captured his thoughtful and resolute pose, his own shadow consumed the children’s shapes. After a long moment, he turned away and went back to the asphalt walkway.

He marched back toward the hotel. Elena trailed him. Rounding a turn, he saw a commotion at the front of the Polissia Hotel. A stretch black limousine pulled to the entrance of the hotel, surrounded by a sleek fleet of bulletproof sedans. Men in dark suits piled out, forming a thick cordon. The arriving dignitary climbed from the limousine, an arm raised in greeting.

Camera and video lights spotlighted the figure, outlining the newcomer’s profile.

There was no mistaking that silhouette.

The president of the United States.

Here to support a vital nuclear pact between Russia and the United States.

The major reason Pripyat had been cleaned up and sanitized was so it could host such dignitaries.

Not wanting to be upstaged, Nicolas waited for the entire party to vanish into the hotel’s lobby. Once the way was clear, he headed out again.

Everything was in place.

He glanced to the Chernobyl plant as the sun sank toward twilight.

By this time tomorrow, a new world would be born.

5:49 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk stood on a ridge and stared out across the low mountains. With the sun sinking, the valley below lay in deep shadows.

“We have to cross that?” he asked. “There’s no other way around?”

Konstantin folded the map. “Not without going hundreds of miles to circle it, which would take many days. The mine we must reach on the far side of Lake Karachay lies only twelve miles away if we cross here.”

Monk stared down at the swampy valley. The river they’d floated down dumped over this last ridge and fed into the wide valley below. Many other creeks and streams did the same. In the slanted sunlight, waterfalls and cataracts shone like flows of quicksilver. But shadowed by the low mountains, the valley floor was all drowned forests and wide stretches of open black marshes rimmed by reeds and grasses. It would be difficult to cross, and once it got dark, it would be easy to get lost.

He sighed heavily. They had no choice but to cross the swamplands. He turned to where Kiska and Pyotr sat on a log. The kids still looked like a pair of half-drowned kittens. They had ridden the river for a quarter mile until the chill drove them to shore. Monk had them exit on the opposite side of the river from the hunting cats. The water should break their trail, and the river only grew wider the farther down the mountains it flowed. The tigers would have to brave a stiff river crossing to pick up their scent.

And for the past two hours, Pyotr had remained silent, plainly worried about Marta. But at least the boy showed no panic, no sign he sensed the tigers nearby.

Once out of the water, Monk had everyone remove their clothes, twist them as dry as possible, and redress. The two-hour hike during the warmest part of the day had helped dry most of their clothes. But now they would get wet again, and the sun was setting. It would be a cold night.

But Konstantin was right. They had to keep moving for now. It was not safe to remain on solid ground with two tigers stalking these highland forests. The swamp would at least offer some shelter.

Monk picked a path down the steep ridge. He helped Pyotr, while Konstantin held his sister’s hand. The two youngest children were fading fast. As a group, they sank out of the warmer sunlight and into the chillier shadows.

Trees grew heavier here, mostly pines and birches. But along the maze of creeks that flowed into the bog, willows draped with sullen shoulders, the tips of their branches sweeping the waters.

Monk headed out, forcing a path. The underbrush was a tangled mix of juniper bushes and berries. But the way grew clearer as the ground grew muddier. Soon they were stepping from moss clump to moss clump, which was not difficult, considering how well the mosses flourished here. The fuzzy green carpet covered rocky outcroppings and climbed up the white trunks of birches, as if trying to drag them beneath the earth.

Their pace began to slow, literally bogged down as the patches of stagnant water rose around them.

A piercing call drew Monk’s eyes up. An eagle swept past with wings as wide as Monk’s outstretched arms.

Hunting.

It reminded Monk of the dangers behind them.

He increased their pace. For once, the small children seemed better suited for the terrain. Their lighter bodies floated over the sucking mud, whereas Monk had to watch each step or lose a boot.

For the next hour, they moved sluggishly, traversing less than a mile by Monk’s calculation. He spotted snakes that slithered from their path and caught a flashing glimpse of a fox as it hopped from hillock to hillock and vanished. Monk’s ears strained for every noise. He heard things lumbering through the swamps. A heavy set of antlers marked the passage of a massive elk.

Before they knew it, they were ankle-deep in water, moving in a zigzagging pattern from island to island. The cold air smelled dank with algae and mold. Insects buzzed with a continual white noise. The passage grew darker as the sun continued to fall behind the mountains.

Monk’s steps slipped to a plodding pace.

Konstantin moved alongside Monk’s flank. He still held Kiska’s hand. The girl was nearly asleep on her feet.

Pyotr stuck close to Monk’s hip. Monk had to hike the boy onto his shoulders whenever they crossed through deeper water.

Pyotr suddenly grabbed Monk’s hand, clamping hard.

Something crashed through the trees, coming right at them.

Oh, no…

Monk yelled, knowing what was coming. “Go! Run!”

Monk snatched up the boy, who struggled and cried out. Konstantin splashed away, his knees high, dragging his sister behind him. Monk’s left foot sank to his calf. He tugged, but he could not free his limb. It was as if it had sunk into cement.

The rip and snap of branches aimed for them.

Monk tossed Pyotr ahead of him and twisted around to face the charge. He heard the boy splash into the water. But instead of running away, Pyotr scrabbled back to Monk.

“No! Pyotr, go!”

The boy continued past him as a large shadow leaped out of the trees and landed heavily into the water with a splash. Boy and shadow fell upon each other in a warm greeting.

Marta.

Monk fought the hammering in his heart. “Pyotr, next time…some warning.” He wormed his foot slowly out of the muck.

The chimpanzee hugged the boy and lifted him bodily out of the shallow water. Konstantin and Kiska splashed back to them. Marta let Pyotr go and gave each child a tight squeeze. She came next to Monk, arms up and wide. He bent down and accepted a hug from her, too. Her body was hot, her breath huffing in his ear. He felt the tremble of exhaustion in her old body. He returned the hug, knowing how hard she must have fought to rejoin them.

As Monk straightened, he wondered how Marta had found them. He did understand how she had overtaken them. While they had slogged through mud and water, she had swept through the bog’s trees, closing the distance. But still, how had she tracked them?

Monk stared back into the dark fen.

If she could follow them…

“Let’s keep moving,” he said and waved toward the heart of the swamps.

Together again, they traversed the swamplands. The reappearance of Marta invigorated the children, but the weight of the bog soon had them all heaving and struggling again. Konstantin drifted farther ahead. Pyotr hovered next to Monk, while Marta kept mostly to the trees, swinging low, her toes skimming the waters.

Slowly, the sun vanished behind the mountains, leaving them in dark twilight. Monk could barely make out Konstantin. Off to the left, an owl hooted in a long hollow note as full night threatened.

Konstantin called softly back to them out of a denser copse of willows, sounding urgent. “An izba!”

Monk didn’t know what he meant, but it didn’t sound good. Hauling after the boy, Monk found the water growing less deep.

He pushed through a drape of willow branches and saw that one of the ubiquitous tiny islands rose ahead. But it wasn’t empty. Atop the low hillock squatted a tiny cabin on short pylons. It was constructed of rough-hewn logs and topped by a moss-covered roof. The single window was dark. There was no sign of life. No smoke from the chimney.

Konstantin waited at the edge of the island among some tall reeds.

Monk joined him.

The tall boy pointed. “A hunter’s berth. Cabins like this are all over the mountains.”

“I’ll check it out,” Monk said. “Stay here.”

He climbed up onto the island and circled the cabin. It was small, with a chimney of stacked stone. Grasses grew as high as his waist. It didn’t look as if anyone had been here in ages. There was a single window, shuttered closed from the inside. Monk spotted a short pier, empty of any boats. But a flat-bottomed punt—a raft with a pointed prow—had been pulled into some neighboring reeds. Moss covered half the raft, but hopefully it was still serviceable.

Monk returned to the front of the cabin. He tried the door. It was unlocked, but the boards had warped, and it took some effort to tug it open with a creaking pop from its rusted hinges. The interior was dark and smelled musty. But at least it was dry. The log cabin had only one room. The floor was pine with a scatter of hay over most of it. The only furniture was a small table with four chairs. Crude cabinets lined one whole wall, but there was no kitchen. It appeared that all the cooking was done at the fireplace, where some cast-iron pans and pots were stacked. Monk noted a stack of dry wood.

Good enough.

Monk stepped to the door and waved for the kids to come inside.

He hated to stop, but they all needed to rest for a bit. With the window shuttered, Monk could risk a small fire. It would be good to dry out their clothes and boots, have a warm place for the coldest part of the night. Once rested and dry, they could set out before dawn, hopefully using that raft.

Konstantin helped him get a fire started while the two children sat on the floor, leaning on Marta. The older boy found matches in a waxen box, and the old dry wood took to flame with just a touch of kindling. A fire stoked quickly, snapping and popping. Smoke vanished up the chimney’s flue.

As Monk added another log, Konstantin searched the cabinets. He discovered fishing tackle, a rusted lantern with a little sloshing kerosene, a single heavy bowie-style knife, and a half-empty box of shotgun shells. But no gun. In a closet, he found a few curled, yellow magazines sporting naked women, which Monk confiscated and found a good use for as kindling. But on the top shelf, four heavy faded quilts had been folded and stacked.

As Konstantin handed out the quilts, he pointed to Monk’s discarded pack. Monk glanced over. The boy indicated his radiation monitor. No longer white, it now had a pink hue to it.

“Radiation,” Monk mumbled.

Konstantin nodded. “The processing plant that poisoned Lake Karachay.” He waved toward the northeast. “It also slowly leaked down into the ground.”

Contaminating the groundwater, Monk realized. And where did all the runoff from the local mountains end up? Monk stared toward the shuttered window, picturing the bog outside.

He shook his head.

And he thought all he had to worry about was man-eating tigers.

7:04 P.M.

Pyotr sat naked, huddled in a thick quilt before the fire. Their shoes were lined up on the hearth, and their clothes hung out to dry on fishing line. The line was so thin it was as if his pants and shirt were floating in the air.

He enjoyed the flickering flames as they danced and crackled, but he didn’t like the smoke. It swirled up into the chimney as if it were something alive, born out of the fire.

He shivered and shifted on his backside closer to the bright flames.

The matron at the school used to tell them stories of the witch Baba Yaga, how she lived in a dark forest in a log cabin that moved around on chicken legs and would hunt down children to eat. Pyotr pictured the stilts he’d seen outside that held up their cabin. What if this was the witch’s cabin, hiding its claws deep beneath the ground?

He eyed the smoke more suspiciously.

And didn’t the witch have invisible servants to help her?

He searched around for them. He didn’t see anything move on its own. But then again, the flames danced shadows everywhere, so it was hard to tell.

He moved closer again to the warmth of the flames. Still, he kept his eyes on the swirling curls of smoke.

He rocked slightly in place to reassure himself. Marta came up and slid next to him, curling around him. He leaned into her. A strong arm pulled him even closer.

Do not fear.

But he did fear. He felt it itching over the inside of his skull like a thousand spiders. He watched the smoke, knowing that was where the danger truly lay as it swept up the chimney, possibly warning Baba Yaga that there were children in her house.

Pyotr’s heart thudded faster.

The witch was coming.

He knew it.

His eyes widened upon the smoke. He searched for the danger.

Marta hoo-hoo-ed in his ear, reassuring him, but it did no good. The witch was coming to eat them. They were in danger. Children in danger. The fire popped, scaring him into a small jump. Then he knew.

Not children.

But child.

And not them.

But another.

Pyotr stared hard at the smoke, pushing through the darkness to the truth. As the smoke curled to the sky, he saw who was in danger.

It was his sister.

Sasha.

11:07 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

“D.I.C.,” Lisa explained at the bedside of the girl.

Kat struggled to understand. She stood with her arms tight to her belly as she stared down at the tiny slip of a girl, so thin-limbed in her hospital gown, lost amid the sheets and pillows of the railed bed. Wires trailed from under her sheets to a bank of equipment against one wall, monitoring blood pressure and heart rate. An intravenous line dripped a slurry of saline and medicines. Still, over the past hours, her pale skin had grown more ashen, her lips a hint of blue.

“Disseminated intravascular coagulation,” Lisa translated, though she might as well have been speaking Latin.

Monk, with his medical training, would have known what she was talking about. Kat shook this last thought out of her head, still rebounding from seeing the child’s picture. She had plainly drawn it for Kat. They had formed a bond. Kat had seen it in the child’s eyes when she read to her. Mostly the girl’s manner was flat and affected, but occasionally she would turn those small eyes up at Kat. Something shone there, a mix of trust and almost recognition. It had melted Kat’s heart. With a new baby herself, she knew her maternal instincts and hormones were running strong, her emotions raw with the recent loss of her husband.

“What does that mean?” Painter asked Lisa.

He stood on the opposite side of the bed beside Lisa. He had just returned after taking a call from Gray in India. His team had been attacked and was now headed to the northern regions. Painter was already investigating who had orchestrated the ambush—the assassination attempt on the professor could not have been coincidence, someone knew Gray had been flying out there. Despite needing to follow up on the mystery, the director had taken time to come down here to listen to Lisa’s report.

Dr. Cummings had finished a slew of blood tests.

Before Painter’s question could be answered, Dr. Sean McKnight entered the room. He had taken off his suit coat and tie. He had his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He had gone to make some calls following Gray’s debriefing. Painter turned to him, an eyebrow raised in question, but Sean just waved for Lisa to continue. He sank into a bedside chair. He had kept a vigil there for the past hour. Even now he rested a hand on the bedsheet. Kat and Sean had talked for a long while. He had two grandchildren.

Lisa cleared her throat. “D.I.C. is a pathological process where the body’s blood begins to form tiny clots throughout all systems. It depletes the body’s clotting factors and leads contrarily to internal bleeding. The causes are varied, but the condition arises usually secondary to a primary illness. Snake bites, cancers, major burns, shock. But one of the most common reasons is meningitis. Usually a septic inflammation of the brain. Which considering the fever and…”

Lisa waved to the device attached to the side of the child’s skull. Her lips thinned with worry. “All tests confirm the diagnosis. Decreased platelets, elevated FDPs, prolonged bleeding times. I’m certain of the diagnosis. I have her on platelets, and I’m transfusing her with antithrombin and drotrecogin alfa. It should help stabilize her for the moment, but the ultimate cure is to treat the primary disease that triggered the D.I.C. And that remains unknown. She’s not septic. Her blood and CSF cultures are all negative. Might be viral, but I’m thinking something else is going on, something we’re in the dark about, something tied to the implant.”

Kat took a deep, shuddering breath. “And without knowing that…”

Lisa crossed her own arms to match Kat’s pose. “She’s failing. I’ve slowed her decline, but we must know more. The initials—D.I.C.—have another connotation among medical professionals. They stand for Death Is Coming.”

Kat turned to Painter. “We must do something.”

He nodded and glanced to Sean. “We have no choice. We need answers. Maybe with time we could discern the pathology here, but there are certain individuals who know more, who are current with this biotechnology and know specifically what was done to this girl.”

Sean sighed. “We’ll have to tread carefully.”

Kat sensed a discussion had already occurred between Sean and Painter. “What are you planning?”

“If we’re going to save this child”—Painter stared at the fragile girl—“we’re going to have to get in bed with the enemy.”

11:38 P.M.

Trent McBride strode down the long deserted hallway. This section of Walter Reed was due for renovation. Hospital rooms to either side were in shambles, walls moldy, plaster cracked, but his goal was the mental ward lockdown in back. Here the walls were cement block, the windows barred, the doors steel with tiny grated cutouts.

Trent crossed to the last cell. A guard stood outside the door. They weren’t taking any chances. The guard stepped to the side and offered a jangling set of keys to Trent.

He took them and checked through the small window in the door. Yuri lay sprawled fully dressed in the bed. Trent unlocked the door, and Yuri sat up. For an old man, he was wiry and spry, plainly he had been juicing up on a strong cocktail of androgens and other anti-aging hormones. How those Russians loved their performance-enhancing drugs.

He swung the door wide. “Time to go to work, Yuri.”

The man stood up, his eyes flashing. “Sasha?”

“We shall see.”

Yuri crossed to the door. Trent didn’t like the resolute cast to the man’s expression and grew suddenly suspicious. Rather than beaten, Yuri had an edge of steel to him, like a sword’s blade pounded and folded to a finer edge. Maybe all the old man’s strength didn’t just come from injections into his ass cheeks.

But resolute or not, Yuri was under his thumb.

Still, Trent waved for the guard to follow with his sidearm. Trent had planned to walk Yuri back himself. Well over six feet and twice the man’s weight, Trent hadn’t been worried about needing an escort. But he did not trust the cast to Yuri’s eye.

They headed out.

“Where are we going?” Yuri asked.

To put a final nail in Archibald Polk’s coffin, he answered silently. Trent had orchestrated the death of his old friend, but now he was planning on putting an end to one of Archibald’s shining successes, his brainchild, a secret organization that the man had dreamed up while serving the Jasons.

A team of killer scientists.

Basically Jasons with guns.

But after murdering the professor, Trent must now destroy the man’s brainchild. For his own work to continue, Sigma must die.

Chapter 12

September 6, 7:36 P.M.
Punjab, India

As the sun sank into the horizon, Gray admitted that Rosauro’s choice of vehicle proved to be a wise decision. In the passenger seat, he kept a palm pressed to the roof to keep him in his seat as their SUV bumped along a deeply rutted muddy road. They’d left the last significant town an hour ago and trekked through the rural back hills.

Dairy farms, sugarcane fields, and mango orchards divided the rolling landscape into a patchwork. Masterson had explained that Punjab was India’s abundant breadbasket, the Granary of India, as he described it, producing a majority of its wheat, millet, and rice.

“And someone has to work all these fields,” Masterson had said as he gave them directions from the backseat.

Kowalski and Elizabeth shared the row with him. Behind them, Luca sat in the rear, polishing his daggers.

“Take that next left track,” Masterson ordered.

Rosauro hauled on the wheel, and the SUV splashed through a watery ditch, almost a creek. Small downpours had dumped on them throughout the trip up here. Punjab was Persian for “land of five rivers,” which was one of the reasons it was India’s major agricultural state.

Gray checked the twilight skies as night approached. Clouds rolled low. They’d have more rain before the night was over.

“Up ahead,” Masterson said. “Over that next hill.”

The vehicle slogged up the slope, churning mud. At the top of the rise, a small bowl-shaped valley opened, ringed by hills. A dark village lay at the bottom, a densely packed mix of stone homes and mud huts with palm-thatch roofs. A couple of fires glowed at the edge of the town, stirred by a few men standing around with long poles. Burning garbage. A bullock cart stood beside one fire, stacked high with refuse. The single horned bull stirred at the approach of their vehicle down the hill.

“The other side of India,” Masterson said. “Over three-quarters of India’s population still live in rural areas. But here we have those who live at the bottom of the caste system. The Harijan, as Gandhi renamed them, which means ‘people of God,’ but they are mostly still derided as dalit or achuta, which roughly translates as untouchable.”

Gray noted Luca had sheathed his daggers and turned a more attentive ear. Untouchables. These could be the same roots as his clans.

Lit by flames, the village men gathered with scythes and poles, wary of the approaching strangers.

“Who are these people?” Gray asked, wanting to know more about whom they faced.

“To answer that,” Masterson said, “you have to understand India’s caste system. Legends have that all the major varnas—or classes of people—arose from one godlike being. The Branmans, which include priests and teachers, arose out of the mouth of this being. Rulers and soldiers from its arms. Merchants and traders from its thighs. The feet gave rise to laborers. Each has its own pecking order, much of it laid out in a two-thousand-year-old collection known as the Laws of Manu, which details what you can and can’t do.”

“And these untouchables?” Gray asked, keeping an eye on the gathering men and boys.

“The fifth varna is said not to have risen from this great being at all. They were outcasts, considered too polluted and impure to mix with regular people. People who handled animal skins, blood, excrement, even the bodies of the dead. They were shunned from higher-caste homes and temples, not allowed to eat with the same utensils. Not even their shadows were allowed to touch a higher caste’s body. And if you should break any of these rules, you could be beaten, raped, murdered.”

Elizabeth leaned forward. “And no one stops this from happening?”

Masterson snorted. “The Indian constitution outlaws such discrimination, but it still continues, especially in rural areas. Fifteen percent of the population still falls into the classification of untouchable. There is no escape. A child born from an achuta is forever an achuta. They remain victims of millennia-old religious laws, laws that permanently cast them as subhuman. And let’s be honest. Like I said before, someone has to work all these fields.”

Gray pictured the vast rolling farmlands and orchards.

Masterson continued, “The untouchables are a built-in slave class. So while there is some progress made on their behalf, mostly in the cities, the rural areas still need workers—and the caste system serves them well. Villages such as this one have been burned or destroyed because they dared to ask for better wages or working conditions. Hence the suspicion here now.”

He nodded to the welcoming party carrying farm instruments.

“Dear God,” Elizabeth said.

“God has nothing to do with this,” Masterson said sourly. “It’s all about economy. Your father was a strong advocate for these people. Lately he was having more and more trouble gaining the cooperation of yogis and Brahman mystics.”

“Because of his association with untouchables?” she asked.

“That…and the fact that he was looking for the source of the genetic marker among the untouchable peoples. When word spread of that, many doors were slammed in his face. So much for higher enlightenment. In fact, after he disappeared, I was convinced he’d been murdered for that very reason.”

Gray waved Rosauro to stop at the edge of the glow from the burning garbage fires. “And this village? This is where Dr. Polk was last seen?”

Masterson nodded. “The last I heard from Archibald was an excited phone call. He’d made some discovery and was anxious to share it—then I never heard from him again. But he sometimes did that—would vanish for months at a time into the remote rural areas, going from village to village. Places that still have no name and are shunned by those of higher castes. But after a while, I began to fear the worst.”

“And what of these people?” Gray asked. “Do we have anything to fear from them?”

“On the contrary.” Masterson opened his car door and used his cane to push to his feet.

Gray followed him. Other doors opened, and everyone exited. “Stay near the truck,” he warned them.

Masterson traipsed toward the fire with Gray in tow. The professor called out in Hindi. Gray understood a few phrases and words from his own studies of Indian religion and philosophy, but not enough to follow what the man was saying. He seemed to be asking for someone, searching faces.

The men remained a solid wall, bristling with weapons.

The ox lowed its own complaint beside the wagon, as if sensing the tension.

Finally Masterson stood between the two smoking pyres. The air reeked, smelling of fried liver and burning tires. Gray forced himself not to cover his mouth. Masterson waved back to the truck and continued to speak. Gray heard Archibald Polk’s name followed by the Hindi word betee.

Daughter.

All the men turned their gazes toward Elizabeth. Weapons were lowered. Chatter spread among them. Arms pointed at her. The wall of men parted in welcome. A pair of the boys, their voices raised in a happy shout, ran back down a narrow alleyway between two stone houses.

Masterson turned to Gray. “The achuta in this area hold Archibald in high esteem. I had no doubt the presence of the respected man’s daughter would be met with hospitality. We have nothing to fear from these people.”

“Except for dysentery,” Kowalski said as he reached them with the others.

Elizabeth elbowed him in the ribs.

Gray led them into the village, sensing they had more to worry about than just upset bowels.

8:02 P.M.

Elizabeth crossed between the two fires. Beyond their glow, the village roused. Someone started to clank loudly on a makeshift drum. A woman appeared, her face half covered in a sari. She motioned them toward the village center.

As she turned, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of scarred, sagging flesh, hidden under the thin veil. Masterson noted Elizabeth’s attention.

She leaned toward him. “What happened to her?”

The professor answered softly and nodded to the woman. “Your father mentioned her. Her son was caught fishing in a pond of a higher-caste village. She went to scold him off, but they were caught. The villagers beat the child and poured acid on the woman’s face. She lost an eye and half her face.”

Elizabeth’s body went cold. “How awful.”

“And she considers herself lucky. Because they didn’t rape her, too.”

Shocked, Elizabeth followed the woman, galled by such an atrocity, but at the same time, awed by her strength to survive and persevere.

The woman led them along a maze of crooked alleys to the village center. Another fire blazed there. People gathered at a few wooden tables around a well pump. Women swept the tables free of leaves or carried out food. Young children ran all around, barefoot, mostly shirtless.

As Elizabeth passed, several men bowed their heads, sometimes even at the waist as she walked. Plainly in respect for her father. She had never known much about what he’d been doing out here.

Masterson motioned with his cane toward the men. “Archibald did much good for the local villages. He exposed and disbanded a militia that terrorized these parts, even got better wages for the villagers, better medical care and education. But more important, he respected them.”

“I didn’t know,” she mumbled.

“He won their trust. And it was in these hills that he concentrated his genetic testing.”

“Why here?” Gray asked on the professor’s other side.

“Because just as Archibald devised that map I showed you, he also did a more detailed schematic of the Punjab region. A trail of genetic evidence pointed to these hills, but I think it was something more.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Like what?”

“I’m not sure. His interest in the region spiked about two years ago. He stopped testing broadly across India and began concentrating here.” The professor glanced back to Luca. “And with the Gypsies.”

Elizabeth thought back two years. She had been finishing her PhD program at Georgetown. She’d had little contact with her father during that time. Nor patience. Their occasional phone conversations were usually short and terse. If she had known what he was doing beyond his own field of study, maybe things could have been different.

Reaching the heart of the village, they were greeted with smiles and urged to come to the table. Food was already piling high—roti flatbread, rice dishes, steamed vegetables, small plums and fat dates, bowls of buttermilk—simple but heartfelt fare. A woman on her knees stirred a lentil stew on a horseshoe-shaped oven. Her daughter carried a bucket of cow dung to feed the flames beneath.

Kowalski joined Elizabeth, stepping close. “Not exactly Burger King.”

“Maybe because they worship cows.”

“Hey, I worship them, too. Especially grilled rare with a nice baked potato.”

She smiled. How did that infernal man always get her to smile? She was suddenly too conscious of how close he stood and stepped away.

Off to the side, one of the villagers began plucking the strings of a sitar, accompanied by a man with a harmonica and another with a tabla drum.

A tall newcomer stepped up to them all. He appeared to be in his midthirties, his hair cropped short, olive skinned. He was dressed in a traditional dhoti kurta, a spotless wrap of rectangular cloth that hung from waist to ankle, along with a tunic buttoned over a long-sleeved shirt. Atop his head, he wore an embroidered knitted cap called a kufi. He bowed deeply and spoke in English with a crisp British accent.

“I am Abhi Bhanjee, but I would be honored if you would call me Abe. We Indians have a saying: At ithi devo bhava. It means ‘Our guests are like gods.’ And none more so than the daughter of Professor Archibald Polk, a dear friend of mine.” He waved them to the table. “Please join us.”

They obeyed, but it did not take long for his smile to dim as the man learned about her father.

“I had not heard,” he said softly, his face a mask of pain. “It is a loss most tragic and sad. My condolences, Miss Polk.”

She bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“He was last seen here at your village,” Gray added and nodded to Masterson. “He called the professor, said he was coming here.”

Masterson cleared his throat. “We hoped you might be able to cast a light on where Archibald went.”

“I knew he should not have gone alone,” the man said with a shake of his head. “But he would not wait.”

“Go where?” Gray asked.

“It was wrong to take him there to begin with. It is a cursed place.”

Elizabeth reached and touched the man’s hand with her fingertips. “If you know something…anything…”

He swallowed visibly and reached to a pocket inside his tunic. He slipped out a tiny cloth bag that clinked. “It all started when I showed your father these.” He fingered the bag open and upended the contents onto the table. “We find them occasionally when we till the fields of these lands.”

Old tarnished coins, nearly black with age, rattled and danced. One rolled to Elizabeth. She stopped it with her palm, then picked it up. She examined the surface, rubbing some of the grime with her thumb—until she realized what she was holding.

Upon the surface, abraded but still distinct, was the face of a woman, her cheeks framed by a tangle of small snakes. It was the Gorgon named Medusa. Elizabeth knew what she was holding.

“An ancient Greek coin,” she said with surprise. “You found these in your fields?”

Abe nodded.

“Amazing.” Elizabeth turned the coin toward the firelight. “Greeks did rule the Punjab for a while. Along with Persians, Arabs, Mughals, Afghans. Alexander the Great even fought a great battle in this region.”

Gray picked up another coin. His expression darkened. He held out the coin toward her. “You’d better look at this, Elizabeth.”

She took it and studied it. Her fingers began to tremble. Upon its surface, a Greek temple had been minted. And not just any temple. She stared at the three pillars that framed a dark doorway. Prominent in that threshold stood a large letter E.

“It’s the Temple of Delphi,” she gasped out.

“It looks like the same coin your father stole from the museum.”

She struggled to understand, but she could not think. It was as if someone had short-circuited her brain. “When…when did you first show my father these coins?”

Abe frowned. “I’m not certain. About two years ago. He told me to keep them safe and hidden, but since he is dead and you are his daughter…”

She barely heard him. Two years ago. The same time her father had arranged for her to work at the Delphi museum. She sensed she was holding the coin that had bought her the museum position. Too busy here himself, her father must have wanted her to follow up on this mystery. A spark of anger fired through her, but she was also too aware of the villagers around her and how they’d been treated. Maybe her father couldn’t leave, couldn’t abandon them.

Still, he could have told her something.

Unless…maybe he was protecting her?

She shook her head, filled with questions. What was going on here? She sought answers on the other side of the coin. The surface was black with a large worn symbol that did not appear to be Greek.

Abe noted her confused expression. He pointed to the coin, having studied it before. “That is a chakra wheel. An ancient Hindu symbol.”

But what’s it doing on a Greek coin? she wondered.

“May I see?” Luca asked. He crossed around the table to stare over her shoulder. His body stiffened, and his fingers tightened on the table’s edge. “That…that symbol. It’s also on the Romani flag.”

“What?” Elizabeth asked.

He straightened, his brow crinkled with confusion. “The symbol was chosen because the Sanskrit word chakra means ‘wheel.’ It is said to represent a Gypsy’s wagon wheel, symbolic of our nomadic heritage, while still honoring our Indian roots. But there were always rumors that the symbol had deeper, more ancient roots among the clans.”

As the others discussed the significance, Elizabeth studied the coin in silence, beginning to sense at least one truth.

Gray leaned toward her, reading something on her face. “What is it?”

She met his steely gaze. She held up the coin and pointed to the temple side. “My father pulled strings to get me that position at the Delphi museum shortly after finding this.” She flipped the coin to the chakra side. “At the same time, he started to investigate the Gypsies and their connection to India. Two sides of a coin, two lines of inquiry.”

Elizabeth turned the coin on edge. “But what lies between the two? What connects them?”

She turned to Abhi Bhanjee. He had not told them everything.

“Where did my father go?” she asked with a bite to her voice.

A shout from one of the villagers answered her. A man came running from the outer fires. The music died away—but a distant drumming continued, a heavy beat that thumped to the chest.

Gray jerked up.

Elizabeth stood, confused, and stared out toward the hills, trying to discern the direction of the noise, but it seemed to come from everywhere—then three lights speared out of the overcast sky.

Helicopters.

“Everyone back to the SUV!” Gray shouted.

Abe yelled in Hindi, barking hard orders. Men and women fled in all directions. In the tumult, Elizabeth got separated, spun by passing bodies. Disoriented, she fought to follow their group.

Like diving hawks, the helicopters swept toward the village, then split wide to circle. With her eyes on the skies, she stumbled, but a thick arm caught her. Kowalski scooped her around the waist and lifted her to her toes, urging her faster.

“C’mon, babe.”

He forded through the chaos, a rolling rock.

At the edges of the village, the helicopters settled to a hover. Ropes slithered out from open side doors. Even before their ends reached the ground, dark forms slid down the lines, heavy with helmets and gear.

They would never make it to the SUV.

8:38 P.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Nicolas snapped his cell phone closed. So that was one less problem to worry about. He crossed down the hallway toward the gala. Music wafted, a traditional Russian composition from the nineteenth century, “Snegúrochka,” “The Snow Maiden.”

He drew his palm down the lines of his tuxedo. While others dressed in modern couture, Nicolas had handpicked his outfit in Milan, a single-button Brioni cashmere jacket with a peaked lapel and shawl collar. It was classic and elegant, chosen because the Duke of Windsor had worn such suits in the 1930s and 1940s. It had a vintage look that melded with Nicolas’s rhetoric, but he had updated his appearance by replacing the traditional bow tie—which never looked good with his trimmed beard—with a silk pleated tie, accented by a diamond tack set in Russian silver.

Knowing how well he looked, he entered the ballroom.

New marble floors shone under the light of a dozen Baccarat crystal chandeliers, a charitable donation by the company for this event. Tables circled an empty dance floor. But the true dancing had already commenced. The crowd mingled and swirled in eddies of political power, vying for the right nod, a moment alone with the right potentate, a whispered deal.

Russia’s prime minister and the U.S. president created the largest pools. Each was vying for support in regard to how to handle sanctions against burgeoning nuclear threats. An important summit on the matter was scheduled in St. Petersburg after the ceremony here. The sealing of Chernobyl was the symbolic start of that meeting.

Nicolas stared over at the pair, surrounded by a sea of people. He intended to wade into those waters. With his growing popularity as the spokesman for nuclear reform, those seas would easily part for him.

He should at least shake the hands of the two men he planned to kill.

But before he waded into those waters, he headed over to Elena. She stood by one of the arched windows. Heavy silk drapery framed both the window and the woman. She cut a stately figure in a black dress that flowed like oil over her lithe form, a Hollywood matinee idol brought back to life. She carried a flute of champagne in one hand, as if forgotten. She faced the darkness beyond the window.

He joined her.

Beyond the ruins of the city, bright lights twinkled near the horizon. Work crews would labor throughout the night to ready the viewing stands and ensure that the installation of the new Sarcophagus over the shell of Chernobyl went smoothly. The eyes of the world would be on the event.

He touched her arm.

She was not startled, having noticed his reflection in the mirror.

His voluptuous Rasputin.

“It is almost over,” he said and leaned to her ear.

According to his man, the concussion charges had already been secured in place. Nothing could stop them.

8:40 P.M.
Punjab, India

Gunfire erupted before Gray could reach the edge of the village. Screams and shouts echoed. Helicopters thumped overhead. He flattened himself against a stone wall. Beyond the pair of garbage fires, the Mercedes SUV rested at the edge of the glow.

A soldier in black gear ran low across the open ground, assault rifle at his shoulder. Others had to be already solidifying positions around the village, locking the place down. Then they’d close in for the kill, sweeping through the maze of the village.

Gray knew the only hope for the villagers was for his team to flee, to draw off the hunters. They had to make their escape before the village was secured.

He stretched an arm back to Rosauro. “Keys.”

They were slapped into his hand, but Rosauro had more bad news. “Kowalski. Elizabeth. They’re not here.”

Gray glanced back. In the mad rush through the twisted alleys, he’d failed to notice. “Find them,” he ordered Rosauro. “Now.”

She nodded and dashed away.

Gray stared hard at Luca. “Guard the professor. Stay out of sight.”

The Gypsy nodded. Two daggers glinted in his fingers.

Gray could wait no longer.

Crouching low, he ran out of hiding and into the open.

Elizabeth fled with Kowalski down a crooked alley. A sewage trench lined one side, reeking and foul.

“Follow that,” she urged. “It has to lead out of here.”

Kowalski nodded and took the next corner. He had a pistol clenched in a meaty paw. She kept to his shoulder.

“Do you have another gun?” she asked.

“You shoot?”

“Skeet. In college.”

“Not much difference. Targets just scream a bit more.”

He reached under his jacket to the small of his back and slipped out a small blue steel Beretta and passed it blindly back to her.

Her fingers tightened hard on the grip, drawing strength from the cold steel.

They set off. The alleyway was deserted, but gunfire spat from the outskirts as villagers defended their homes and lives.

One of the helicopters swept low overhead. The wash from its rotors scattered leaves and bits of garbage. They ducked out of sight into a mud hut. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of children huddled behind a low cot.

After the helicopter flew past, Kowalski tugged her toward the door—but then piled back into her. A soldier in black dashed past the opening. The war must be moving into the village proper. Kowalski peeked out, waved for her, then led her back outside.

“We’ll strike for the hills,” he said.

They zigzagged through two more turns and reached a straight shot toward open hills. Bodies lay on the street ahead, blood sluicing into the sewage drain. At least one of them wore black camouflage. Kowalski kept close to one wall and hurried forward. He led with his pistol up.

A spat of automatic fire chattered beyond the village.

How would they get past that?

Kowalski paused at the soldier’s dead body. He tugged off the man’s helmet.

Maybe a disguise, Elizabeth thought. Not bad thinking.

But as Kowalski yanked, the soldier’s head came off with the helmet. Shocked and horrified, he fell back into her. Tangled, they both stumbled to the ground.

A dark shadow appeared behind them.

Another soldier.

She raised her pistol and shot wildly. The rounds cracked stones and ricocheted, missing the target but driving him back around the corner. Kowalski’s weapon blasted behind her, sounding like a cannon in the narrow alley. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw two more soldiers at the end of the street.

They were pinned down and outgunned.

Gray ducked out of the alley and into the open. He dove under the bullock cart that still stood by the pyres of burning garbage. Sliding on his stomach, he edged even with one of the fires. Shielded by the cart, he reached out to the edge of the bonfire. If the gunshots and helicopters didn’t spook the ox from its post, then Gray would have to light a fire under its tail.

Literally.

Snatching up a chunk of burning tire from the pyre’s edge, Gray flipped it into the oily pile of refuse still stacked atop the cart. It didn’t take long for the flames to catch and spread. With a burning branch in his other hand, he crawled fully under the cart and goosed the ox in the hind end.

It roared a loud bellow and kicked back at him, knocking the cart a good blow. Gray snatched the front board of the wagon as the ox took off, lowing angrily. It shot straight for the hills, dragging the cart, leaving behind a trail of flaming garbage.

Bumped and jarred underneath the cart, Gray kept a hard clamp on the front board and made sure to stay clear of the heavy wheels. The ox and cart reached the hills and bounced across a runoff ditch.

Gray let go and sank into the watery mud and muck.

The cart continued off into the hills, a fiery meteor sailing to points unknown. Gray hoped any eyes in the sky would keep watching that flaming trajectory.

In the dark, Gray swam and pushed along the muddy ditch as it circled the village. He reached the far side of the Mercedes and waited for the nearest helicopter to drift farther away—then lurched out of the gully and ran low to the ground, keeping the SUV between him and the village.

He’d have to get inside the vehicle quickly. The SUV’s dome light would illuminate when he opened the door. Keys in hand, he took a deep breath.

He could wait no longer.

Pinned in the alleyway with soldiers at both ends, Elizabeth searched for an escape. She found one. An open window. A step away.

She nudged Kowalski and pointed.

“Go!” he growled.

She dove through the opening. Cradling her pistol, she landed in a rough tumble. The room was empty, just a dirt floor. Kowalski came barreling in after her. She barely got out of the way in time. Gunfire strafed at his heels. Boots pounded toward them from both directions.

“Door,” she called.

On the opposite side from the window, a low archway led into another alley. Together they fled outside—

—and right into a clutch of another four soldiers.

With surprise on all sides, they scrambled with weapons. But before a shot could be fired, flashes of flailing steel rained down upon the soldiers. Elizabeth and Kowalski backed together. One man pointed his pistol out at the attackers, but steel snapped and sliced his hand from his arm. Another fell to his knees, his throat slashed open.

In a heartbeat, all four men lay dead, torn apart.

Their rescuers were three men.

Abe and two of the villagers.

Their weapons were unique to the country. Urumi. The infamous whip-swords of India. Each sword was a flail of four flexible blades, each an inch wide and five feet long—yet so thin that the steel coiled like a whip. Elizabeth’s father had shown her demonstrations of the fighting known as Kalaripayattu. With a flick of the wrist, the blades unfurled and cleaved flesh with more force than any standard sword.

“Come!” Abe said. “Your friends are this way.”

He led them back into the village. They followed a circuitous path both around and through village homes and huts. Abe lashed out with the sword occasionally, striking even around corners to blind and maim. Then he’d jump out to finish the job with his men.

Kowalski’s eyes gleamed in the darkness as he watched the slaughter. “With a weapon like that, no wonder they’re called untouchable. I have to get me one of those.”

Coming around another corner, Abe slashed out—then jerked his arm back with a glint of thrashing steel. A cry of surprise sounded from around the corner.

“So sorry,” Abe said.

Rosauro appeared. She held a hand across her cheek. Blood seeped from under her fingers. But her eyes widened when she saw who accompanied the swordsman.

“Thank God I found you,” she said. “Hurry!”

As a group, they fled after her.

After a flurry of confusing turns, a familiar pair of fires glowed at the end of an alley. Crouched between two mud huts, Luca waved to them. Elizabeth spotted the professor, huddled deeper in the shadows.

Where was Gray?

As answer, a heavy engine roared to life beyond the village.

“Get ready!” Rosauro growled at them, blood running down her face.

Ready for what?

Gray shifted into drive and floored the gas pedal. All four tires catapulted him forward. The SUV lunged as one of the rear-side windows splintered. He shot past the twin garbage fires.

A helicopter swooped into view ahead. It had no mounted gun, but it did have someone hanging from its side door with a machine gun.

Gray pounded the brakes. Bullets strafed through the mud just past his front bumper. He threw the truck into reverse, hit the gas, and hightailed it backward with the strength of five hundred horses.

Yanking the wheel, he whipped around his back end, lifting up on two wheels. Landing on four tires, he shot back toward the alley and hit the rear hatch release. A warning light flashed on the dash as the back hatch swung open on hydraulic hinges. He crashed between the two fires, scattering flaming garbage.

He braked to a stop, nearly striking Rosauro in the thighs as she rushed at him with the others. They clambered and dove into the back cabin. People fell in a tangle in the middle row, making room. He spotted a familiar shaved bulldog’s head. They’d found Kowalski.

And Elizabeth, too.

Presently crushed under the large man.

Rosauro called from the rear, “Go!”

Gray kicked the gas and punched the hatch release to close the door.

Ahead, two helicopters aimed toward him from opposite directions. Twin lines of bullets chewed through the mud.

Gray swerved, juking one way, then the other.

The helicopters matched his moves.

A torrent of fresh gunfire erupted from the village behind him—aimed at the birds in the sky. The barrage was impressive, even laced with fiery tracer rounds. A few of the villagers must have confiscated some of the assault team’s automatic weapons.

One of the snipers in the helicopter fell from his perch. Its searchlight shattered and went dark.

The other bird veered. Gray ducked past its hail of fire and reached the hills. He kept the gas floored. With his headlights off, he followed the path of the bullock cart, hoping whatever path the ox took would be passable with the four-wheel drive.

He shot away from the bright fires of the village and out into the rolling darkness. Two helicopters followed, chasing them with searchlights. The third lowered at the edge of the village, dropping lines to the ground, collecting stray men.

Rosauro leaned forward. “They’re Russians!”

“Russians?”

“I think so,” she explained. “The commandos were carrying AN-94s.”

Russian military assault rifles.

In the rearview mirror, Gray caught a worried glimpse on Masterson’s face. First an American mercenary team, now Russians…How many people wanted this guy dead? Answers would have to wait for the moment.

Gray could see that the helicopters, reflected in his mirrors, continued to close the distance. While Gray had succeeded in his plan—getting the team clear of the village and drawing off the assault team—now what?

“Turn right at the bottom of the next hill!” a voice called behind him with a British accent. Gray glanced back and saw they had a stowaway.

Abhi Bhanjee.

Rosauro explained, “He knows a way to shake our tail!”

Hitting the bottom of the slope with a splash of water, Gray took a hard right and followed the muddy valley.

“Now left past that next fencerow!” Abe yelled.

What fencerow?

Gray leaned forward. Without headlights, it was too dark to see. If only he had more lights…

A helicopter swept past, its searchlight blazing. It was not exactly what Gray had been hoping for. Still, with the better illumination, he spotted a fence of stacked stones ahead. Unfortunately the beam also spotted them. Brilliant light swamped the SUV.

A salvo of gunfire erupted, peppering the water, pinging his back end.

With no time to spare, Gray reached the fence and yanked to the left. Even with the four-wheel drive, the back end fishtailed in the water and mud. But the tires finally gripped, and they fled up a short rise and out of the water.

The helicopter swept wide. But its spotlight pivoted smoothly and kept fixed to them, tracking their passage below.

Shooting over the top of the next rise, the SUV lifted into the air for a breath, then struck down hard enough to knock Gray’s teeth together. Cries rose from the rear.

At the bottom of the slope and to the right, a black sea divided the gray landscape ahead. It was not water, but a vast forest.

“Mango orchard!” Abe said. “Very old farm. Very old trees. My family has worked many generations there.”

Gray shot toward that dark orchard.

The spotlight followed. Gunfire rained at them, but Gray kept a slaloming, unpredictable course. Not a single bullet touched them.

With a final roar of the engine, they barreled into the orchard. Trees towered in straight rows. Branches arched into a continuous canopy, cutting off the glare of the spotlight. Gray slowed as the light vanished and darkness fell around him. Still, he made several turns, running perpendicular to their original path. The thumping of the helicopter’s blades faded. Gray fled deeper, like an escaped prisoner running through a dark cornfield.

“How large is this orchard?” he asked, calculating how well they’d be able to hide here.

“Over ten thousand acres.”

That’s one big cornfield.

As the danger ebbed, everyone settled themselves more comfortably into their seats.

Rosauro leaned forward. “There’s another reason Abe insisted he come along.”

“Why’s that?”

She lifted a coin into view. It was the Greek coin with the chakra wheel on the back. She pointed to the temple.

“He knows where this is.”

Gray glanced into the rearview mirror. He spotted Abhi Bhanjee seated in the back row next to Luca. Even through the gloom, Gray recognized the man’s terror. He remembered the Hindu man’s description about where Archibald Polk had been headed when he’d vanished.

A cursed place.

Chapter 13

September 6, 10:26 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk kept guard.

In dry clothes and with his bones warmed by the hearth, Monk circled the cabin. He creaked around as quietly as possible, stepping carefully. He wore his boots, though the laces were untied. He had all the children redress and put on their shoes before curling up in their quilts. If they had to leave suddenly, he didn’t want them fumbling with clothing.

Konstantin and Kiska huddled together, each cocooned in their blankets. They seemed smaller in sleep, especially Konstantin. His sharp attention and mature speech patterns made him seem older. But with his body relaxed, Monk realized he could be no older than twelve.

Stepping past them, Monk moved extra softly. By now, he knew which floorboards creaked the loudest and avoided them. Pyotr lay curled in the embrace of the old chimpanzee. She sat on the floor, her head hung to her chest, breathing deeply in sleep. Pyotr had panicked earlier, scared for his twin sister. Monk trusted the boy’s instinct, but there was nothing they could do. It took a full hour to get Pyotr to finally relax, but the day’s trek had worn the boy to a thread. He finally succumbed to his exhaustion and drifted to sleep, guarded over by Marta.

No matter how softly Monk tread, she would lift her head toward him as he passed. Bleary, warm eyes stared up at him, then the lids drifted down along with her head.

Keep watching over him, Marta.

At least someone loved these children.

Monk returned to his seat beside the door. He had upended the table across the threshold and had positioned a chair in front of that. He sank to it with a sigh.

He listened to the night noises of the swamp: the gurgle of water, the croaking of frogs, the buzz of crickets, and the occasional soft hooting of a hunting owl. He had been startled earlier by something large moving past the cabin, but a peek through the shutters revealed a muddy boar, grubbing around.

Monk let the creature roam, serving as a tusked sentinel. But eventually it moved on.

The rhythms of the swamp lulled him. Before long, his own chin sank toward his chest. He’d only close his eyes for a few minutes.

—You’re late again, Monk! Get moving!

His head snapped back up, cracking against the underside of the upended table. Pain lanced through his skull—not from his knock against wood, but from deeper down. For a moment, he tasted…tasted cinnamon, spiced and warm, along with a whispery brush against his lips. A scent filled him, stirred him.

It faded quickly.

Just a dream…

But Monk knew better. He sat straighter as the icy spike of pain melted away. He fingered the sutures behind his ear.

Who am I?

Konstantin had described a sinking cruise liner, a weighted net, and his rescue at sea. Had he worked on the ship? Had he been a passenger? There was no answer inside him, only darkness.

Monk gazed across the room and found a pair of eyes staring back at him. Pyotr hadn’t moved. He just looked at Monk. The knock of his head against the table must have woken the boy.

Or maybe it was something else.

Monk met the boy’s gaze. He read a well of sorrow in the child’s eyes, too deep for one so young. It scared Monk a little. It was no simple grief or fear. Hopelessness shone in his tiny face, a despair that had no place in any child’s eyes. The boy shivered, stirring Marta.

She hooted softly and looked over her shoulder at Monk.

He stood and crossed to them. The boy’s face gleamed brightly in the firelight. Too brightly. Monk checked his forehead.

Hot. Feverish.

That’s all he needed was a sick child.

Couldn’t he catch even a small break?

His silent question was answered by a feral scream. Close. It started as a throaty growl, and then pitched into a full scream. It reminded Monk of someone yanking on the cord of a chain saw.

A second cry answered from the opposite side of the domicile.

The feral screams jerked both Konstantin and Kiska to their feet.

There had been no warning.

Monk had heard no sign of the cats’ approach. Even the boy had remained unaware. Maybe it was the fever or simple exhaustion. Monk had hoped for some notice.

The cabin was not secure. From what he saw on the riverbank earlier, each tiger weighed around seven hundred pounds, most of it toughened muscle. The cats could tear through the door or claw through the roof in seconds. But for now, they circled, growling, sizing up the place.

Konstantin had expressed another concern. Even if the tigers didn’t storm the cabin, they were surely being followed by hunters on two legs. They could not let the cats trap them here.

So with no choice, they moved quickly.

Monk slipped the spear-point bowie knife they’d found in the cabin from his belt and clenched the wooden handle between his teeth—then he crossed to the stone hearth and pulled a flaming brand out of the fire. Earlier, using the knife, he had chopped a three-foot-long branch from a scraggly pine outside. The resin was highly combustible and had fueled the stick into a fiery torch.

Monk hurried around the room. He tapped the torch to the underside of the thatch roof. Long neglected, it was as dry as tinder. He had also emptied the kerosene from the rusty lantern into some rags and stuffed them in the roof.

Flames spread quickly.

The cats yowled into higher octaves, splitting the night.

Behind Monk, Konstantin lifted two pine boards from the floor. Monk had already pried out the old nails with the same knife and loosened the boards. Raised on short stilts, the cabin had a low crawl space beneath it, open on all sides. It was too low-roofed for Monk, but not for the children or Marta. He prayed the cats could not shimmy under there also.

Opposite the door, Kiska unlatched the shutter from the cabin’s window and dropped it open.

At the same time, Monk kicked the table aside from the door.

Ready and running out of time, he waved the kids below as smoke filled the upper half of the cabin and heat blazed down.

Marta helped Pyotr under the floorboards. Kiska went next. Konstantin followed. The older boy nodded to Monk, no longer a boy, but a dour young man again. “Be careful,” Konstantin warned.

With the dagger between his teeth, Monk returned his nod.

Konstantin dropped away and vanished.

Monk had to keep the cats distracted. The roof fire and smoke should confuse them. He had to add to it. With the torch in his hand, he counted to ten—then kicked the warped door with all his strength. Boards cracked, and the door smashed wide.

A tiger crouched three yards away. Startled, it curled into a long menacing hiss. One claw swiped at the empty air in his direction.

The feline equivalent of fuck you.

Monk gaped a half second at its sheer size. Thirteen feet long. Eyes glowed with reflected firelight as the cabin’s roof burned. Lips rippled back, pink tongue arched deep inside a cage of long fangs.

Monk swung the torch in a fiery arc. His heart pounded a primal drumbeat that traced back to mankind’s prehistoric roots huddled in dark caves.

Still, as he’d hoped, the loud bang of the door drew the second cat. It came ripping around the corner on the left, low to the ground, a blur of striped fur and massive paws. Monk shoved his torch in the cat’s face as it lunged at him.

Fur burned, and the cat screeched and rolled away.

Monk caught a glimpse of the tiger’s gnarled left ear, marking this one as Zakhar.

His brother Arkady howled and charged, defending his littermate.

Monk knew the cat intended to bowl into him, torch or not.

So Monk hiked his arm back and hurled the fiery brand like a javelin. It speared through the air and struck the tiger square in its open mouth. The cat shot straight up, spitting and writhing in midair.

Monk grabbed the knife from his teeth, pivoted on his toe, and lunged back into the cabin. As he turned, from the corner of his eye, he spotted Zakhar pounding straight at him.

Gasping in terror, Monk sprinted across the smoky interior of the cabin. Like tear gas, the heat and sting of soot blinded him. He ran on instinct. The open window lay directly opposite the door. Blinking tears, he made out a darker square set against the blurry wall.

He dove straight at it, stretching his arms ahead of him.

His aim was sure—until a claw snagged his pant leg. Cloth ripped free, but his body jerked. His shoulder hit the window’s edge with an arm-numbing blow. His momentum enabled him to tumble out the window. He landed hard with the wind knocked out of him. The knife flew from his fingertips into high weeds.

Behind him, Zakhar slammed into the wall, unprepared for the mouse hole through which Monk had escaped. The impact shook the entire cabin; flames danced higher. A howl of raw fury chased Monk back to his feet.

He stumbled a step, caught himself, then sprinted away from the cabin toward the water. It was that stumble that doomed him.

2:20 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

“Her condition is a form of meningitis,” Dr. Yuri Raev admitted.

Painter sat across the dining table from the older Russian scientist. Dr. Raev was flanked by John Mapplethorpe, who Painter recognized from a dossier Sean McKnight had prepared—and a surprising guest, Dr. Trent McBride, the supposedly missing colleague of Archibald Polk.

It seemed he had been found.

Painter had a thousand questions for the man, but the meeting here at the Capital Grille on Pennsylvania Avenue had been tightly negotiated across intelligence channels. The limit and scope of their discussions had been ironed out. Any discussion of Dr. Polk was off the table. At least for now. The only matter open for dialogue was the health of the girl.

As such, Painter had brought his own experts to the roundtable. On his side of the table sat Lisa and Malcolm. The pair had the medical knowledge and background to weigh the validity of the information offered.

Across the table, the Russian looked ill at ease. He was not the monster Painter had envisioned in his mind when he’d negotiated this roundtable. The man looked like a kindly grandfather in his rumpled dark suit, but there was a haunted quality to his eyes. Painter also read the crinkled concern as he talked about the child. The lines on his face had deepened and spread when he glanced through the medical file Lisa had slid across the table. Painter suspected the only reason the man was cooperating was a true fear for the girl’s life.

“Her deterioration is a result of her augment,” Yuri continued. “We don’t completely understand why. The device’s microelectrodes are composed of carbon-platinum nanotubules. We believe that the more a subject utilizes their talents, the faster they deteriorate. Has Sasha been drawing while you’ve had her in your custody?”

Painter remembered all her feverish sketches: the safe house, the Taj Mahal, a picture of Monk. He slowly nodded. “Exactly what is she doing when she draws?”

Mapplethorpe lifted a hand. There was an oiliness to his voice, well suited to slide around the truth. “You know that is beyond the scope of discussion here. You’re treading on thin ice, Director Crowe.”

Yuri spoke over Mapplethorpe’s objection, which Painter found interesting. “She is a prodigious savant,” he said, ignoring glares from either side. “Her natural talents blend keen spatial dynamics with artistic talent, and when augmented, these abilities cross to—”

“That’s enough,” Mapplethorpe barked. “Or we end matters here and walk away. You can send us the girl’s body after she’s dead.”

Yuri’s face darkened, but he went silent.

Lisa encouraged him back on track. “Why does utilizing her abilities accelerate Sasha’s deterioration?”

Yuri spoke softly, with a trace of guilt. “When stimulated, the interface between the organic and inorganic begins to leak.”

Malcolm stirred. “What do you mean by ‘leak’?”

“Our researchers believe that nanoparticles break away from the ends of the microelectrodes and contaminate the cerebral spinal fluid.”

Lisa stirred. “No wonder our cultures came back negative. The meningitis wasn’t bacterial or viral, but a contamination of foreign particles.”

Yuri nodded.

“And to cure her, we must treat that contamination?” she asked.

“Yes. It has taken us many years to devise a system of preventative medicine. At the core, we employ a modified version of a chemotherapeutic drug used to treat bladder cancer. Cis-platinum. The monoatomic platinum acts as a binder for the stray nanoparticles and helps flush them out. The exact cocktail and dosage of drugs necessary to facilitate such a treatment will require an examination of the girl and immediate access to fresh blood tests.”

Painter noted the corners of McBride’s lips harden. It seemed there was some dissatisfaction with this dependency on Dr. Raev. But if the Russian was telling the truth, he was vital to the girl’s survival.

Under the table, Lisa’s hand rested on Painter’s knee. The long linen tablecloth hid her attention. They were seated in the Fabric Room of the Capital Grille steakhouse, neutral ground, a restaurant known for the number of deals struck across the fine china and linen. They had the private dining hall to themselves. The rest of the restaurant was notably empty. Most likely arranged by Mapplethorpe to assure further privacy.

Lisa’s fingers tightened on his knee, signaling that she believed Dr. Raev. Painter also noted the division between the Russian and the other two men. Was there a way of utilizing that to his advantage?

McBride spoke. “We have Dr. Raev’s pharmacy of medicines. If you’ll bring the girl to a hospital, we can get her treatment started immediately. Perhaps Walter Reed Army Medical Center.”

Painter shook his head.

Nice try, bud.

Lisa supported him. “She’s too fragile to move. We’re barely managing her D.I.C. as it is. Any additional stress could destabilize her beyond recovery.”

“Then I must go to her,” Yuri said.

Painter knew they’d come to the prickly point of these negotiations. The child was a political and scientific hot potato. He had left her in the care of Kat and Sean. Sean, as the director of DARPA, was also wielding his skill behind the scenes. The roundtable here was just the tip of the political iceberg.

Painter had no choice but to bring Yuri to the girl, breaching Sigma security—but unfortunately, Mapplethorpe knew this, too. And from their reactions here and the obvious friction between them, Mapplethorpe would never allow Yuri to go alone.

“I will allow one person to accompany Dr. Raev,” Painter said.

Mapplethorpe misinterpreted his restriction. “We know where Sigma command is located, if that’s what you fear revealing. Beneath the Smithsonian Castle.”

Though Painter shouldn’t have been startled, his gut still clenched. Mapplethorpe had his fingers tangled throughout the intelligence web of Washington. Sean had warned that it would not take the man long to determine who was involved and where they were located. Still, with all his political power, Mapplethorpe could not gain access to Sigma’s inner sanctum. Behind the scenes, the man was surely still attempting to storm their gates. Sean’s goal was to keep those gates barred tightly.

Painter kept his features stoic. “Be that as it may, I’ll allow only one person to accompany Dr. Raev.” He glanced between the two men.

McBride lifted a hand. “I’ll go. I can be of use to Yuri.”

From the Russian’s slight roll of his eyes, it seemed Dr. Raev did not agree.

Mapplethorpe stared hard at Painter, then slowly nodded. “But we’ll want a concession for our cooperation,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You may keep the girl—but from here on out, you’ll grant free access to her once she’s recovered. She is a resource we’ll not let slip away. Our national security is at stake.”

“Don’t wave the flag at me,” Painter said. “What you cooperated in to produce this girl is beyond all conventions of human decency.”

“We only financed and offered scientific counsel at the end. The project was already well established. If we hadn’t cooperated, as you say, our country would be at serious risk.”

“What a crock! When you cross such a line, you damage all of us. What nation are we trying to protect, if that nation advocates the brutality necessary to produce this girl?”

“Are you truly that naive, Crowe? It’s a new world out there.”

“No, it’s not. Last I checked, it’s the same planet circling the same sun. The only thing that’s changed is how we’re reacting, what lines we’re willing to cross. We have the ability to stop that.”

Mapplethorpe glowered at him. Painter saw the resolution in the man’s eyes. The man truly believed what he was doing was necessary, saw no fault in it. Here was a level of zealotry that brooked no argument. Painter wondered where such certainty came from—was it just patriotism or did he wrap himself in such dogma to protect himself from the atrocities he committed, crimes he knew in his heart were too horrible to justify any other way?

Either way, they were at an impasse.

“Do we have a deal?” Mapplethorpe asked. “Otherwise, we’ll move on. There are always other children.”

Painter studied his adversary. To cure the child, he had no choice but to get into political bed with him. Painter could not let the girl die. He’d have to deal with the political fallout afterward.

Painter slowly nodded. “When can you be ready?”

McBride spoke up. “I’ll need an hour to collect Dr. Raev’s medicines.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Painter said and stood, ending the summit.

Mapplethorpe followed him up and held out his hand, as if they’d just completed a real estate sale. And maybe they had. Painter was about to sell a part of his soul.

Still, with no choice, he shook the man’s hand.

Mapplethorpe’s palm was cold and dry, his grip firm with certainty.

A part of Painter envied that level of unwavering conviction. But did the man sleep as well at night? As they departed through the wood-paneled restaurant and out under the blue-green awning, Painter was troubled by one statement by Mapplethorpe, a disturbing aside.

There are always other children.

Who was he talking about?

10:42 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

He had to get away.

Monk sprinted toward the open water. Behind him, a tiger’s scream sliced through the night, coming from the flaming cabin.

Zakhar.

The cat fought to climb through the window.

Monk increased his pace.

Ahead, he spotted a small raft out in the water. Earlier, Monk had hauled the old punt out of the reeds. He’d scraped away most of the moss and found the raft still floated. Unfortunately, there were no oars, so Monk had fashioned a long pole out of the trunk of a sapling.

Out in the deeper water, Konstantin stood in the stern of the raft and leaned hard on the makeshift pole. The raft drifted farther away. At least they had made it.

As planned, the children had crawled out from under the cabin while Monk had distracted the cats. The raft waited for them a yard offshore. They were to hop on board, shove off, and head for the deepest water.

Monk was supposed to have joined them—but his exit from the cabin had not gone as smoothly as he’d hoped.

The delay gave time for the second tiger—Arkady—to tear around the flaming cabin with a hiss of fury and charge straight at Monk.

The drum of heavy pads trampled behind him. Monk fought for the water’s edge. Without a weapon, escape was his only hope.

Gasping, he stretched his stride.

The landscape jittered.

A low growl closed on him.

Footfalls pounded.

No breath.

Heartbeat in his ears.

A sharper hiss…ready to pounce.

The glint of water.

Too far.

Hopeless, he turned and dropped, skidded on his backside.

The cat hunched to spring with its last stride, but—

—out of the high weeds, a dark shadow leaped and struck the cat in the side. Monk caught a flash of silver. Then the shadow hurdled the tiger, hit the ground, and bounded headlong into a thick patch of willows and vanished.

Marta.

The chimpanzee hadn’t left with the kids.

Arkady, caught off balance in midlunge, had been knocked on his side. The tiger thrashed back to his paws as Monk crabbed backward on hands and feet. Staggering, the tiger yowled a coarse, strangled sound.

Blackness poured down the cat’s throat, erasing stripes into shadow.

Blood.

Impaled under his jaw, the handle of a knife protruded.

The bowie knife from the cabin.

Monk had lost it when he fell.

The chimpanzee had recovered it, used it, saved his life.

Monk remembered—and he couldn’t say how he remembered—that chimps were natural tool users. With twigs, they fished termites out of nests. With sharpened branches, they stabbed African bush babies out of holes in trunks.

And Marta was no ordinary chimp.

Arkady trembled all over, his yowl drowning in blood.

Another took up his cry.

Zakhar screamed with a violence that set Monk’s jaw to aching.

Monk shoved and fled toward the water. Reaching the muddy bank, he dove straight out and landed on his belly in the shallows. He kicked and lunged for the deeper water.

Zakhar’s howl swelled with outrage.

Monk splashed and paddled far enough to dive completely underwater. The cold cleared the panic, but even underwater, he heard the tiger’s scream. Holding his breath, Monk stroked and frog-kicked out into the deeper water.

As his lungs grew to burning, he surfaced quietly.

Treading water, he stared back toward the cabin. Flames cast high into the darkness. Limned in the firelight, Zakhar circled his brother. The other tiger did not move.

Monk heard Marta sweeping through the trees. He craned and saw her swing free and drop heavily to the raft. It lay ten yards away.

Monk swam to it and hauled himself atop it. He sprawled on his back, out of breath, panting.

On his left, Marta lay curled on her side, tucked tight, rocking slightly. A low moan flowed from her. Pyotr sprawled atop her, comforting her, holding her.

Monk lifted to an elbow, glanced to the cabin, then back to Marta.

As Zakhar continued to scream, Monk reached out a hand and rested it on the chimpanzee’s shoulder. Her body trembled, bent in a posture of grief.

It had to be done, he willed to her.

Arkady had been tortured, abused, driven half mad. The cat had become more a monster than one of God’s creatures.

Death was a blessing.

Still, Marta moaned.

Killing was never easy.

At the stern, Konstantin heaved on the long pole and sent them floating toward the heart of the swamp.

Monk sat up. Something caught his eye. Before they had settled in for the night, he had stored everyone’s packs on the raft. His gaze focused on a badge hanging from a zipper. The radiation monitor.

In the reflected firelight, it was plain to see.

The pink color had grown darker.

And with it, so did their hopes.

4:31 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Yuri adjusted the flow of the drip line from the I.V. bag. His fingers trembled as he worked. He was too conscious of Sasha in the bed, lost amid the blanket and sheets. She was worse than he’d feared.

He silently cursed the hour he’d lost, waiting on McBride and Mapplethorpe. It was time he could’ve used to initiate Sasha’s treatment. Instead, he’d been locked up at the FBI building while the other two had gone about some private business. McBride finally returned with all of the medications from Yuri’s hotel room.

On foot, they had then crossed the Mall, where they were met outside the Smithsonian Castle and escorted down a private elevator to the secure facility below. They were searched, scanned, and blindfolded. Led by hand, Yuri had quickly lost his bearings in the subterranean maze of the facility. They finally reached a room, a door closed behind them, and the lock clicked.

Only then was his blindfold removed.

Yuri found himself in a small hospital room. One wall was mostly mirrored, surely two-way glass. Two people stood guard over the child: a tall auburn-haired woman who introduced herself as Kat Bryant and Dr. Lisa Cummings, whom he’d met at the restaurant. Lisa held out a stack of medical reports.

“We’re at your service,” Lisa said. “Tell us what must be done.”

Yuri set to work. He read all the reports, reviewed the latest blood chemistries. It took him another ten minutes to calculate the dosages. McBride tried to help, watching over his shoulder.

Yuri had growled at him, “Stay out of my way.”

The Americans did not know the alchemy in preserving the children. Yuri intended to keep it that way, and the method was too complicated to torture out of him. But he could not let Sasha die without trying to save her, so he had to let McBride watch. But once Sasha was safe…

Kat interrupted his reverie, standing behind him. “Will she be okay?”

Yuri tapped the drip. Satisfied with the flow, he turned and found the woman’s eyes upon him. Her hair was braided back from her face, revealing the worry in the hard edges around her eyes and mouth.

He sighed and offered her the truth. “I’ve done all I can. We’ll need hourly renal tests, urine specific gravities. It will give us some idea of the progress, but it will take five or six hours before we know if she’ll survive.”

His voice cracked with his last words. He turned away, embarrassed to show weakness to these strangers. He found McBride staring back at him, a callous glint to his eyes. The man had retreated to a chair by the door. He sat smugly with his legs crossed.

“All we can do is wait,” Yuri mumbled and found a seat beside the bed. A child’s book lay open atop it.

Kat reached down and collected it. “I was reading it to her.”

Yuri nodded. On the plane ride here, Sasha had leaned her head on Yuri’s arm while he quietly read her Russian fables. He smiled softly at the memory. They were trained not to grow attached, but she was special.

His hand drifted to where one of her fingers poked from the sheets. A blood pressure monitor was clamped to it. He ran his finger down the thin digit, so like a porcelain doll’s.

Finally he leaned back into his chair. It would be a long wait. McBride tapped his shoe on the floor. Machines shushed and beeped. After a few minutes, Dr. Cummings slipped from the room to discuss matters with the group’s pathologist. Kat settled into a chair on the opposite side of the bed.

As the first hour slowly passed, Yuri noted a pile of papers on the bedside table. A corner of a sheet caught his eye. It was heavily scribbled with a black marker. Glimpsing just the edge, Yuri recognized Sasha’s work. He shifted through various sheets, not comprehending their meaning. But on the last sheet, Yuri found a familiar face. He stiffened in his seat with surprise.

It was their prisoner back at Chelyabinsk 88.

Yuri kept the picture flat. McBride knew nothing about the capture of the American. He’d never been told. Still, Yuri must have stared too long at the picture.

“My husband.” Kat spoke up from the opposite side of the bed. “Sasha drew it. I think she saw his picture in my wallet.”

He slowly nodded and covered the picture.

Her husband…?

“Why would she do that?” Kat asked. She stared at him with a bit more focused intent. “Draw such a picture.”

Yuri stared back at the girl. His heart pounded harder, and his vision narrowed. It was Sasha’s drawings that had saved the man’s life. And now here was the same man’s wife. It was beyond coincidence, outside probable chance. What was going on?

“Dr. Raev?” the woman pressed.

He was saved from having to answer by the flutter of tiny lashes. Sasha’s eyes opened, revealing their watery blue depths. Yuri scooted closer. The woman stood up.

Sasha remained groggy, her gaze unfocused. But her heart-shaped face turned toward Yuri. “Unchi Pepe…?”

That name.

Yuri’s blood pounded in his ears and iced through him. He flashed to a dark aisle in a cold church, to a child clutching a rag doll before a stone altar, staring up at him with the same blue eyes.

Here were the same words. The same accusation.

Unchi Pepe…

The pet name for Josef Mengele, the Butcher of Auschwitz.

He took Sasha’s hand, knocking loose the blood pressure monitor.

No, he promised to her. Not ever again.

Tears blurred his vision.

Her tiny fingers clamped weakly to him. Her lids fluttered. “Papa…Papa Yuri…?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m here, baby. I won’t leave you.”

Her lips moved as she faded back to sleep. Her fingers relaxed and slipped from his. “Marta…Marta’s scared…”

11:50 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

The body was still warm, but the blood was cold.

The kill was an hour or so old.

Lieutenant Borsakov lifted his palm from the flank of the dead tiger. He reached to the head, grabbed an ear, and tugged up. The other ear matched the first, marking this cat as Arkady.

He dropped it and stood.

In his other hand, Borsakov carried his sidearm, a Yarygin PYa. He kept it raised, wishing it was chambered in something stronger than 9 mm. He searched for Zakhar. There was no sign of the cat.

Behind him, the old ibza still smoked and smoldered.

Impressed at the escape, he crossed back to the airboat. A pilot and two other soldiers sat aboard, bearing assault rifles, covering him. The headlamp of the swamp boat speared out into the darkness. The giant fan at the back of the craft slowly spun as the pilot idled its engine.

Borsakov climbed back aboard and waved them out into the dark swamp. The engine whined, the fan spun to a gale, and they sailed away from the glowing ruins of the hunter’s lodge and headed back out into the night. The hunt would have been easier if they’d had the use of infrared scopes or night-vision goggles, but Borsakov had discovered someone had sneaked into the supply shed sometime during the past day and damaged their limited equipment.

Either the American or the children.

They’d known they would be hunted.

“Should we not report in with General-Major Martov?” his second in command asked and reached to the team’s radio.

Borsakov shook his head.

The general-major did not take setbacks well.

The airboat flew through the swamp.

He would call when the American was dead.

As they fled, Borsakov glanced back to the island, to the smoldering ruins and dead cat. He pictured the American and what he had accomplished.

Who was this man? And where did he get his training?

6:02 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Trent McBride lifted the phone’s receiver to his ear. They’d allowed him to use a wall phone and patched his call to Mapplethorpe’s office. Trent was under no illusion that the conversation would be private. Someone was surely monitoring.

But that wouldn’t stop him from calling in a status report.

After a few cursory exchanges with Mapplethorpe, Trent said, “It looks like the girl may survive.”

If she had died, then there would be no reason to proceed.

“Very good,” Mapplethorpe answered. A short and significant pause followed; then he spoke. “How long until we know for sure?”

Trent checked his watch and calculated how much time he’d need. “To be certain. Six hours,” he said.

Middle of the night.

It would take coordination, but then they’d have everything.

Mapplethorpe growled with satisfaction. “Then that’s very good news indeed.”

Chapter 14

September 6, 11:04 P.M.
Punjab, India

“We can go no farther,” Abhi Bhanjee said.

Gray didn’t argue. The Mercedes SUV was up to its axles in mud. Exhausted, his nerves stretched to a piano-wire tautness, he drove the truck up to a stonier piece of ground.

For the past two hours, rain had dumped heavily out of low skies. It seemed impossible for clouds to hold such volumes of water. They had left the mango orchards thirty miles ago and trekked through a landscape just as wooded, but here the terrain was wild. The rolling hills had given way to a broken escarpment of steep hills and cliffs. With the rain, creeks swelled and surged throughout the landscape. It was as if the entire world wept.

But at least the torrent of rain had drowned away the helicopters. The hunters had given up the chase after losing their prey among the thousands of acres of property. Abe knew the lands around here well and had guided them along a steep-walled valley out of the orchards and into this inhospitable terrain.

No one comes here, the man had said. Not good for farming.

That was an understatement.

“We are not far,” Abe assured them as Gray braked to a stop. “Less than a kilometer. But we must walk from here.”

Gray hid the SUV under the draping boughs of a banyan tree. Turning off the engine, he stared out at the cliffs and pictured the temple on the Greek coin. Abe claimed such a structure lay out among these lands. It was where Dr. Polk had been headed the day he disappeared. Only a few local villagers knew of this place. It was a site both revered and feared by Abe’s people, sacred ground for the achuta.

Why had Dr. Polk come out here? What had so excited the professor?

Water sluiced over the windshield, blurring the view.

“Perhaps it’s best if we wait for a break in the weather,” Masterson suggested. “We can look for this temple after it stops raining.”

Gray checked his watch. It was nearing midnight. He didn’t want to be anywhere near here by morning. Come daylight, the helicopters would be out searching again. The tank-size Mercedes SUV would be easy to spot in the open hills. Gray had already taken measures and disabled the truck’s GPS unit, fearing that was how the Russians had tracked them from Delhi.

He had many unanswered questions in his head, but he knew one thing for certain. If they were going to track the last steps taken by Dr. Polk, they’d better do it now.

He swung around to address the passengers. “I’m going with Abe. But the rest of you might want to stay with the vehicle.”

Elizabeth raised her hand. “I’m going with you. If there’s some lost temple out there, you may need my help.”

Kowalski nodded. “And where she goes, I’m going.”

Elizabeth glanced to him with a look that started out annoyed but melted into something less sure.

“We should stay together,” Rosauro said, grabbing their pack of gear.

Luca nodded.

Masterson rolled his eyes. “It looks like we’re all going to get wet.”

With the matter decided, they piled out of the SUV and into the rain. After a couple of steps, Gray was soaked to the skin. His clothes seemed to have gained twenty pounds.

Kowalski cursed and glanced longingly back toward the SUV, but once Elizabeth moved, he followed in her footsteps.

“Over this way,” Abe said and pointed to a shattered cliff that rose up into ragged plateaus covered in trees. Roots tangled out of the sandstone walls, like the gnarled faces of old men, worn from the cliffs by rain and wind. Lightning crackled across the sky, booming with thunder.

The storm worsened.

Bone tired, Gray began to have further doubts about his plan. Since leaving Delhi earlier in the day, he’d been unable to contact Sigma. They’d lost the team’s satellite phone during the assault at the hotel. The prepaid cell phone he’d purchased in Delhi had no reception in this remote area.

They were on their own. And while Gray normally preferred to operate with as little oversight as possible, he had the civilians to consider.

Abe set out toward a narrow ravine cut into the cliff. A creek flowed down the center of it, chugging leadenly with runoff. A narrow path bordered it, with sheer walls rising to either side.

Gray followed Abe to the path. Once in the canyon, the rains lessened, as the winds were blocked. Still, water poured down the walls. The creek’s rumble, trapped in the ravine, grew louder.

They continued single file.

The canyon zigzagged like a thunderbolt, growing narrower and taller as it cut into the high hills.

Abe narrated as he walked. “Our people sometimes retreat here during times of persecution. My great-grandfather told stories of purges, where entire villages were destroyed. Those who escaped fled here to hide.”

No wonder the achuta keep this place secret, Gray thought.

“But these walls do not guarantee protection,” Abe added cryptically. “Not forever.”

Gray glanced to him, but Abe stepped ahead to where the canyon split into two courses. Abe ran his hand along one wall, as if assuring himself of something—then continued onward to the left.

Gray fingered where Abe had touched. There was writing inscribed into the wall, barely visible through the rain, just shadows on the rock.

Elizabeth studied the writing closer. “Harappan,” she said, surprised, and stared around her. “We must be in the outer edges of the Indus Valley. A great civilization once made their home here.”

Masterson agreed with a nod. “The Harappans lived along the Indus River five thousand years ago, leaving behind the ruins of sophisticated cities and temples. You can find them throughout the region. Perhaps our young Hindu friend mistook one of the old Harappan ruins for the temple inscribed on the strange coin.”

Gray continued onward. “There’s only one way to find out.”

After another two turns, the canyon suddenly widened into a small bowl. Water tumbled into it on the far side, dumping over a short cliff and into a pool that fed the creek they’d been following.

Abe stopped and waved an arm around the bowl. “We are here.”

Gray frowned. The canyon was empty—then lightning crackled with a brilliant display that lit the basin. Silvery light bathed the cliffs and reflected off the central pool.

All around the bowl, the sandstone walls had been dug out into notched tiers. Each level sheltered cliff-dwelling homes. They climbed from floor to the lip that overhung the valley. Sections of homes had broken away over the centuries into boulders and rubble. It reminded Gray of the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. But from the style of architecture, no Indians—neither Native Americans nor the peoples of India—had built these dwellings.

Gray stepped forward and turned in a circle. The facades of the homes were white marble, stark against the darker stone. The cliffs, composed of softer sandstone, had long been worn down by centuries of wind and rain. The homes looked like they grew straight out of the walls. The white marble reminded Gray of fossilized skeletons jutting out of a cliff face.

Despite being half swallowed by the storm-melted walls, the basic architectural elements of the marble structures were still evident. Low triangular roofs supported fluted columns. Carvings and sculptures, long softened by age, decorated pediments and cornices.

There was no doubt as to the source of the architecture.

“It’s Greek,” Elizabeth said with awe. She stared around, water streaming down her face. “A Greek temple complex. Hidden here.”

Masterson stood beside her. He had his sodden hat in hand and combed his fingers through his soaked white hair. “Simply amazing. Archibald, you old fool, you could’ve told me…”

Gray also gaped, wonder washing away his exhaustion.

Elizabeth pointed. “That’s a temple in antis, one of the simplest Greek architectural units. Over there’s a later-era prostyle structure. And look at that rounded facade of columns. It must mark a tholos, a circular temple, burrowed into the cliff.”

While she spoke, Gray’s attention focused upon a structure on the far side of the bowl. His heart beat harder. A temple lay halfway up the cliff face. Boulders were strewn at the foot of it, marking where a part of the canyon’s lip had cracked and fallen. Rainwater flowed through the upper crack and streamed across the front of the temple, giving it a watery, illusory appearance.

But there was no mistaking it.

Six columns supported a triangular roof and framed a dark doorway.

“Just like on the coin,” Rosauro said, noting his attention.

Abe headed toward the tall temple. “That is not all.”

Straining with curiosity, Gray followed and dragged the wet party with him.

Once they reached the pile of boulders, Abe crossed to one side and waved them to follow. He mounted the stack of boulders and clambered higher. He seemed to know a path up the rubble.

Climbing single file, they followed the Hindu man.

Elizabeth and Masterson continued an ongoing dialogue. “Why do you think they built the temple complex here? And in such an odd manner?”

“They were clearly hiding,” Masterson said. “It’s a bloody hard place to find, especially buried into these walls. But I’ve seen similar cliff-dwelling arrangements among the Harappan ruins deeper in the Indus Valley. Perhaps these builders took over an old Harappan site, modified it to their tastes.”

“That could be. It was common for one civilization to build atop another.”

As they talked, Gray stared at the temple. Closer now, he saw that what he’d thought were black shadows on the marble columns were actually old scorch marks. Finer details emerged. Cracks and fissures marred the facade; one large section of the upper pediment had broken away.

Gray suspected the damage was not from age alone. It looked like an ancient battle had been fought here.

Ahead, Abe jumped off the top boulder and climbed between two pillars. Gray went next and shimmied onto the marble floor of the temple, finally out of the rain. The six support columns stood a yard from the building they fronted, creating a small porch.

He stood to make room for the others. Kowalski and Luca helped Elizabeth and Masterson. Rosauro came last, burdened with a pack. With everyone gathered, Gray headed to the door, but Abe knelt for a moment and whispered a prayer. Gray waited, sensing to do otherwise would be like trespassing.

Abe stood and nodded.

Gray took out a small flashlight and flicked it on. He entered first, his light blazing into the dark interior.

The chamber was large and perfectly square, twenty feet on a side and again as tall. More columns lined the walls, several broken into rubble. Dug out of the center of the floor was a fire pit, deeply blackened. To either side, arched openings led into side chambers, like chapels in a church.

Gray noted something piled in the smaller rooms. He shifted for a closer look as the others entered the temple. Abe kept to the side, his arms crossed nervously. He didn’t follow.

As Gray pointed his flashlight, he understood the Hindu man’s reluctance. Bones filled the room, stacked like cords of wood, topped by hundreds of skulls. All human. From the rotted appearance and yellowing, the skeletons were ancient.

Gray pictured the scorch marks on the building.

Abe spoke. “We were told stories, passed from father to son, mother to daughter. Of a great battle here. A thousand years ago. It is told how our ancestors found this place full of bones. In honor of the dead, we gathered their remains and interred them in these temples.” He waved toward the bowl outside. “There are many more bones out there.”

Gray turned away from the room. Someone had discovered these people and massacred them. He remembered Abe’s cryptic words from earlier.

These walls do not guarantee protection. Not forever.

The fate of the original inhabitants was a warning to Abe’s people. It was a good place to hide, but one could not escape the world forever.

Gray stepped over to the only other feature in the room.

Like the temple facade, this feature was also depicted on the coin.

Gray crossed to the back wall and shone his light across its surface. The wall of creamy marble had been inset with stark black stone, forming a familiar symbol, climbing twenty feet tall.

“A chakra wheel,” Elizabeth said, mystified. She pulled out a pocket-size digital camera and began taking pictures. “Like the other side of the coin.”

Luca ran a hand along the wall. Gray could read his thoughts. Was this the ancient symbol that was the source of the Romani emblem?

Had Archibald Polk wondered the same?

Kowalski sighed, clearly not impressed with the room. “What a let-down.”

“What are you talking about?” Elizabeth chided. “This is the archaeological and anthropological discovery of a lifetime.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but so what? Where’s all the gold and jewels?”

Gray hated to admit it, but he agreed with Kowalski. He stepped away. He swung the flashlight in a full circle around the chamber. Something was missing, but it wasn’t gold or precious gems.

Rosauro joined him. “What’s wrong?”

“Something’s not here,” he mumbled.

“What?”

Others heard them in the confined space. They stared over.

Gray made one more circle. “On the coin…there was that prominent E? The Greek letter epsilon.”

“He’s right,” Elizabeth said.

Gray wiped drips of rain from his face. “Everything on the coin is found here—the temple facade, the chakra wheel—so where is the Greek letter?”

“It’s one minor detail,” Masterson said. “What does it matter?”

“It’s not minor,” Elizabeth argued. “Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to mimic the temple complex at Delphi. What we saw outside…the temple in antis was the shape of the Delphi’s treasury buildings, the round tholos temple looked like a fair facsimile of the one built to worship Athena at Delphi. And this place here. The exterior and interior are how the Oracle’s temple was laid out. And the E was one of its most prominent decorations.”

Gray recalled his discussion with Painter, about how the Delphic E grew to symbolize a cult of prophecy, a code trailing throughout history in art and architecture.

Luca stepped forward. “I may also know of this letter.”

Gray turned to the Gypsy clan leader.

“I told you of the children who were stolen from us,” he said. “Those of my people who first came upon the massacred camp spoke of a stone church there. The door had been broken open, but upon the shattered planks a large bronze E was found. No one knew what it meant. The only ones who knew were buried in that mass grave. The secret died with them. Perhaps this is the same E?”

Marking the chovihanis, Gray thought. Gypsy fortune-tellers. Another cult of prophecy.

“All well and good,” Masterson persisted, plainly growing tired, too. “But what does it matter if the E is missing here?”

“Maybe nothing,” Gray admitted, but he said it with little conviction. He turned to Abe. “When did you first show Dr. Polk this site?”

He shrugged. “I took Dr. Polk here the first time a year ago. He looked around, took notes, and left.”

Elizabeth’s eyes looked wounded. “He didn’t tell me anything about this discovery.”

“Because he respected our secrets,” Abe said stiffly. “He was a good man.”

Gray studied Masterson’s sour expression. The professor had initially been surprised by the discovery, but after the shock faded and he found no real worth to his own line of research, his interest had waned. Had Dr. Polk experienced the same? The archaeological discovery was significant, but because he couldn’t connect it to his own research, he’d respected the achuta’s secret and had kept quiet about it.

If so, why the sudden urgency to come out here just before he disappeared? He must have discovered some new connection, something bearing on his own line of study.

Gray asked Abe, “Was there anything that triggered Dr. Polk’s sudden need to come here? Anything unusual that led up to that day?”

The man shook his head. “He came to visit the village. Like he had done many times. We were talking about an upcoming election where an achuta candidate was up for a mayoral position. I had found a new coin and showed him, but he asked to see the one with the temple on it again. He glanced at it without too much interest, even spinning it on the table as we spoke. Then suddenly his eyes got huge, and he jumped up. He wanted to immediately come here, but I had obligations with the election. I asked him to wait until I returned…”

His voice trailed off and was picked up by Elizabeth. “My father was not known for his patience.”

Masterson nodded. “That was the day I got the frantic call from him. He claimed that he had discovered something that would shake our understanding of the human mind once it was known.”

As an idea jangled through him, Gray turned to Rosauro. “Let me see that coin again.”

She passed it over.

Gray examined it: temple on one side, chakra wheel on the other. “Elizabeth, you said your father obtained that position for you at Delphi so you could explore how it might connect to his own research. What did you end up telling him about Delphi’s history?”

“Just the basics,” she said. “He was less interested in the history than he was in the discovery of ethylene gases near the temple site. My father wanted more details into the Oracle’s rituals, looking again for physiological support for her intuitive powers.”

“So if he wasn’t interested in the history, when did he learn about the significance of the Greek letter epsilon?”

“I sent him a paper on it.”

“When?”

“About a month before he—” Her eyes suddenly widened.

Gray nodded. He knelt on the marble floor and placed his flashlight down. Propping the coin up on its edge, Gray flicked it and sent it spinning on the floor, lit by the flashlight beam.

He leaned down, studying it.

The spinning coin formed a blurry, silvery globe. The E, positioned in the center of the coin, now rested at the core of the whirling globe. Gray sensed the symbolism. Painter had said that the E may have had its roots in the earliest worship of the Earth mother, Gaia. Now it rested at the center of the silvery sphere, like Gaia herself in the physical world. But the letter also represented human’s intuitive potential, rising out of the core of the human body, out of the brain.

Gray let his own mind relax, seeking significance.

What had Archibald Polk realized?

The coin spun, a silvery mystery, hiding an ancient secret.

But what—?

Then Gray knew.

Reaching out, he slapped the coin flat against the marble.

Of course!

11:35 P.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

“The Americans have Sasha,” Nicolas said sharply as he stepped into the bedroom. He was naked under an open robe, but his anger kept him warm.

Elena lay draped across the bedspread, nude. She had one leg up, and an arm draped to the side, waiting for him. They had returned from the gala to their hotel outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where many of the dignitaries were being housed prior to tomorrow’s event.

Nicolas had spent the past half hour on a scrambled satellite phone, making sure every last detail was addressed before the morning. A call to his mother at the Warren revealed the latest bit of upsetting news. With her ties to former operatives in the KGB, she had heard the rumblings coming out of Washington’s intelligence communities. The city had been in turmoil over the past twenty hours, searching for a girl. It must be Sasha. Then things had gone deathly quiet. Even Yuri went silent. Both he and his mother knew what that implied.

Someone had found her.

And Nicolas suspected who it was.

His fingers clenched into a fist.

It was likely the same organization that had been plaguing him in India, dredging up Dr. Polk’s research, stirring something that Nicolas had thought had ended with the man’s death. One attempt to quash that trail had already failed. But maybe it was just as well.

He’d had one communication, brief, after the failure.

It seemed the team in India was closing in on a secret that Dr. Polk had kept from everyone. Something vital to the professor’s research. Something significant about the children. But what?

Elena stirred on the bed and lifted to an elbow. Concern rang in her voice. “What will you do about little Sasha?”

Nicolas knew all the children grew close. Raised together in the Warren, the older children often took on parental roles with the younger ones. Elena had been especially fond of little Sasha and her brother.

The pair was important to Nicolas, too.

He sank to the bed, and she curled into him, worried and angry. One of her hands slid up under his robe and rested on his thigh. Her skin was hot, feverish. He had kept her waiting too long.

Then long fingernails suddenly clamped onto his thigh, stabbing deeply.

Elena stared up at him. Fire burned behind her eyes, waiting to be unleashed. A trickle of blood ran down Nicolas’s inner thigh, as exciting as the tip of a hungry tongue.

A hard certainty entered Elena’s voice. It brooked no argument, demanding, commanding. “Nothing must happen to little Sasha.”

Her fingers tightened yet again, sending pain shooting to his groin.

He gasped and promised her. “Measures are already under way. All we need—”

Nails dragged up his leg, trailing pain.

“—is something to trade.”

11:45 P.M.
Punjab, India

As thunder boomed and lightning lit up the temple chamber, Elizabeth followed Gray to the giant chakra wheel on the wall. He laid his palm there. Since spinning the coin, he had clearly come to realize something.

But what?

Gray spoke as he stared upward. “From my studies of Indian philosophy, the center of a chakra wheel usually holds a Sanskrit letter, representing one of the energy centers. Muladhara, the root chakra at the base of the spine. Manipura, in the region of the solar plexus. Anahata, the heart.” He stared upward. “This one is empty. Blank.”

“The same on the coin,” Elizabeth said tentatively, not understanding where this was leading.

“Exactly.” Gray had collected the coin and passed it to her now. “But flip the coin over. If you could stare through the center of the chakra wheel to the other side of the coin, what’s positioned there?”

Elizabeth turned the coin back and forth. The capital epsilon lay in the center of the temple, in the exact position as the axle of the chakra wheel on the other side. “It’s the E,” she mumbled.

“It stands on the reverse side of the wheel.” Gray turned to Masterson. “May I borrow your cane?”

The professor passed it reluctantly.

Gray stepped back, reached up, and pushed on the edge of the center circle of black marble. His muscles strained, and the small circle shifted out of place, pivoting around a vertical axis, like a valve in a pipe.

“A secret door,” Masterson exclaimed.

Gray waved to Kowalski. “Give me a leg up.”

Kowalski crossed, dropped to a knee, and laced his fingers. Gray stepped into his grip and climbed high enough to shove the balanced slab of marble wider open. The lower edge of the secret door stood ten feet off the ground. With Kowalski’s boost, Gray wiggled through the opening.

“There’re stairs!” he called back as his legs vanished. “Leading down! Cut into the sandstone back here!”

Elizabeth could hardly wait. She crossed to Kowalski. “Help me.”

She stepped to his knee, but he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up. She squeaked a little in surprise. He was strong. She grabbed the edge of the opening to steady herself and blindly sought for a foothold to push through the door.

“Ow, that’s my nose,” Kowalski griped.

“Sorry.”

He grabbed her ankle and shifted it to his shoulder. She shoved and fell the rest of the way through. She found Gray down a few steps, shining his light over the walls. Writing decorated all the surfaces, a mix of shapes and letters.

“Harappan again,” she said with a strain, and gained her feet.

“And look at this,” Gray said. He swung his flashlight and shone it on the reverse side of the black marble door. A large capital epsilon had been carved deep into the stone.

He’d been right.

Elizabeth freed her camera and took several pictures while Rosauro and Luca joined them, crowding the stairs.

Gray leaned out. “Dr. Masterson?”

Through the opening, Elizabeth saw the professor back away.

“Such clambering is for younger folk than I,” he said, clearly exhausted, limping back with his cane. “Just let me know what you find.”

“I’ll remain here, too,” Abe added, but his voice sounded more scared than tired. Elizabeth had noted how nervous he had grown the closer they got to here.

Gray called down. “Kowalski, stay here. In case we get into trouble.”

“Fine by me,” he answered. “Doubt I could fit through there anyway.”

Kowalski’s eyes flicked to Elizabeth. He nodded, silently warning her to be careful.

Thunder again rumbled, felt in the stones.

“Let’s go,” Gray said.

He led the way down with his flashlight. Elizabeth followed, trailed by Rosauro and Luca. Her fingers traced the wall. Harappan script flowed down the stairwell. The ancient language had never been deciphered, mostly because of the scarcity of the script that survived. Archaeologists were still searching for the Rosetta stone for this language, some codex that would allow them to crack their ancient code.

She gazed around her. This could be it.

Thrilled and amazed, her heart thumped in her chest. She was surprised no one else could hear it. At the same time, she pictured her father following these same footsteps. She imagined his heart had thundered the same as hers. In this moment, she felt a strange intimacy, a closeness they’d never shared in life. And never would. Her throat closed a bit as emotion racked through her.

The stairwell was not long and ended in a small chamber, cut from the sandstone. Water gurgled and echoed on the far side. A natural spring poured out of a knee-high hole in the wall and flowed through a crack in the floor, then vanished out the opposite wall.

“A Harappan well cave,” Elizabeth said, recognizing the configuration. “Living alongside the Indus River, the civilization grew skilled at irrigation.”

Gray shone his light around the space. It was crudely circular. Cut into the stone floor was another chakra wheel. But the center of this one wasn’t empty. A large egg-shaped stone rested there.

“It’s a copy of the omphalos,” Elizabeth said.

She and the others were drawn to it. It stood as high as her midriff and was twice as large as the one from the Delphi museum. The dome’s outer surface was carved with trees and leaves.

Elizabeth swallowed hard and stared around her. “Someone has re-created the original adytum, the inner sanctum of the Oracle, where she cast her prophecies.”

Elizabeth stepped over to a toppled bronze chair. It had three legs. “Here’s a tripod. The classical seat of the Oracle.”

“Or oracles.” Gray had wandered a few steps away. He pointed his flashlight to more toppled chairs.

Five total.

Elizabeth snapped several pictures. What was this place? What was it doing here?

Rosauro called from the wall, hiking up her pack. “You might want to see this,” she said.

Luca stood farther down the wall. His arm was raised to the surface, but not touching. Even in the shadows, Elizabeth noted how his hand shook.

Elizabeth crossed to Rosauro. A mosaic, nearly black with age, covered the wall. Several tiles littered the floor, fallen away. Someone had wiped sections of the mosaic down, removing centuries of mold and grime. It looked hastily done. Elizabeth imagined her father swabbing a cloth over the artwork, seeking what lay beneath.

She stared at what was revealed.

From floor to ceiling, it depicted a siege on a temple set amid mountains. “Parnassus,” Elizabeth mumbled. “Under attack by Romans. It’s showing the downfall of the Temple of Delphi.”

The next section revealed a room not unlike the one they were in, even with an omphalos in the center—but the stone was shown in cross section. Hidden beneath its dome crouched a small girl, cradled in the arms of a young woman, curled tight together as a Roman soldier searched for them.

Elizabeth glanced to the stone behind her. It couldn’t be…

She stepped along the wall. The next tableaux revealed a caravan of horses, donkeys, and carts. At the head of the train, the same slender woman led the child. The long caravan climbed up and over a mountain. The last cart was hauled by two fiery stallions, clearly representing the steeds who drew Apollo’s sun chariot across the skies. But they were not dragging the sun here. In the back of the cart rested the same stone that had protected the woman and child. The omphalos of Delphi.

Elizabeth turned and faced the stone behind her. She trembled all over. “That’s not a copy,” she said with a shudder. “That’s the original omphalos. The one spoken of in the histories of Plutarch and Socrates.”

“And see this,” Rosauro said.

The woman drew Elizabeth to the next scene. It was a picture of the canyon, a joyous scene of the Greeks building temples into the cliffs. The adytum was also depicted, but instead of one Oracle seated atop a tripod, there were five. They circled the omphalos, which smoked like a volcano from the hole at its top. The smoke formed a figure of a young boy with outstretched arms. His eyes were fire, and flames climbed from his open palms.

Was the boy indicative of prophecy in general or something more specific?

Either way, Elizabeth found those fiery eyes staring back at her.

At her shoulder, Gray had also followed the story. He waved an arm along the wall, encompassing the tale.

“The last Oracle, the child, must have been spirited away after the downfall of the temple. In secret, the Greek temple guardians and supporters fled the Roman persecution and settled here, where they rebuilt among these Harappan ruins, and stayed hidden.”

Elizabeth remembered Abe’s story of this place. “They remained safe for seven hundred years, perhaps intermingling with the local tribes in secret. And after so many generations, the Greeks were slowly absorbed into the Indian culture.”

“Then they grew afoul of religious persecution and the growing Indian caste system,” Gray said. “All the bones. A massacre occurred here.”

Luca spoke at the end of the wall. “And they fled again,” he said.

They joined him. He stood a step from the churning spring. The art here was not mosaic tiles, but someone had painted a hurried frieze. It was done in black paint, showing the attack of the temples. People fled in all directions, but one group, highlighted by radiant streaks, escaped in a caravan of tall wagons with large wheels. It faded smaller and smaller across the wall, heading far away.

Luca placed his fingers gently to the wagons. His voice cracked with emotion. “These are our people,” he said. “The Romani. This is where we came from. This is our origin.”

Gray shifted back. He stared across the wall, his face stunned.

The Greek guardians escaped with the last child and the omphalos, hiding in this valley and absorbing over the span of seven centuries into Indian culture, then that same culture persecuted them and sent them wandering once again, but under a new name.

Gypsies.

Gray waved an arm to encompass the wall. “The story depicted here must trace a genetic line that has been preserved throughout history. Flowing from Greece, to here, and out again. A genetic line of savant power.”

“This is why we wander,” Luca said, still staring at the caravan. “As the Hindu man said, no place is safe forever. So we kept moving, trying to protect the secret held within the heart of our clans.”

“Until the secret was stolen from you,” Gray said.

“A secret that trails all the way back to Delphi,” Elizabeth added.

She pictured the child back in Washington. Could she truly be a descendant of the last Oracle of Delphi?

Rosauro stepped to the fresco and pointed to the lines of other figures fleeing the besieged complex in various directions. “These refugees,” she said to Elizabeth. “This must be why your father found all the genetic trails led to this region, why the markers are so concentrated in this area, especially among the lower castes. It’s where the refugees were absorbed into the populace.”

As they talked, Gray had crossed down the wall one more time, studying each image more closely. He came to the last mosaic, the one with the fiery boy. “There’s writing below here,” he said.

Elizabeth stepped closer. There were three lines. The topmost was a handsome line of Harappan script, the next line Sanskrit, the last Greek. Below the lines rested another chakra wheel.

“I can’t read the Harappan hieroglyphics,” she said. “No one can. And below that, I can make out only the first few words of the Sanskrit and Greek. The rest has been worn away. What I can translate, reads ‘the world will burn…’” She took some snapshots, especially of the fiery figure. “The rest is lost.”

Gray leaned lower and touched the chakra wheel inscribed below the lines. “This must be important. It’s repeated over and over.”

He straightened and turned toward the larger chakra wheel carved into the floor. The omphalos rested at its center. Elizabeth could almost read Gray’s mind. If the chakra was important, then what lay at its center must be doubly so. The man’s eyes narrowed as he stalked over to the stone. They’d only given it a cursory glance.

“Your father hid the skull inside the stone at the museum. Maybe there was a reason.”

Gray climbed on top of the domed omphalos.

“Be careful,” Elizabeth squeaked out, fearful of marring the piece of ancient history. She circled the stone and noted the bottom rim was inscribed with three languages again: Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek.

She took more pictures.

Balancing on top of the omphalos, Gray shone his light down through the hole and into its hollow heart.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Gold…in the shape of two eagles.”

Elizabeth’s breath shortened. “Are they facing away from each other?”

Gray glanced back to her. “Yes.”

“It’s another lost artifact from Delphi, representing Zeus’s eagles. According to mythology, the pair was sent in opposite directions from his shoulders to pinpoint the center of the world. They came to roost at Delphi, marking the navel of the world.”

“Your father surely must have found them, too.” Gray reached inside. “Maybe there’s some reason they’re hidden here, the same reason your father hid the skull in the omphalos at the museum.”

As he strained, Elizabeth edged around the stone, continuing her translation of the three lines.

“I think I can reach them…,” Gray said.

Elizabeth mumbled the words found there, tracing each letter with her finger. “‘Greed and blasphemy bring doom to all.’”

Elizabeth stopped.

Oh, no!

“Got it,” Gray said as he reached the golden idols.

Elizabeth snapped straight. “Don’t!”

Startled, Gray slipped.

Something loud thumped inside the stone, followed by a thunderous crack underfoot. A low roar followed, coming from the rear of the chamber, growing in volume, like a freight train barreling toward them.

Everyone froze for a breath, then Gray shoved an arm toward the stairs. “Everybody out!” he screamed.

Too late.

From the spring’s hole, an explosion of water blasted out with the power of a fire hose—in a column two feet thick. Fissures skittered across the wall, radiating out from the opening.

A man-made flash flood.

The water smashed against the far wall and swept into the room, knocking them all off their feet with the force of its current.

Elizabeth tangled into the others as the room swelled rapidly with icy water. Gray nabbed her elbow and dragged her toward the stairs.

“A trap…” She coughed in shock. “Pressure switch! My father…tried to warn us…”

Gray cried. “Out! Out!”

She climbed the first few stairs on hands and feet. Behind her, Gray fished Luca out of the water and shoved him toward the stairs. The level had already climbed to the top of her thighs and rose higher with every breath. Gray remained below, braced in the stairwell opening, searching the small cave.

Elizabeth knew why.

Where was Rosauro?

Gray had lost sight of her. She had been closest to the spring when it blew. The blasting water swirled like a whirlpool in the cavern and reflected his flashlight’s beam. He could not see beneath the surface. By now, the water had climbed to his waist. Still, Rosauro should be able to stand, and even if knocked out, her body should be buoyant enough to reveal her location.

Unless…

Gray turned to Luca and held out his arm. “Your dagger!”

With a flash of silver, a blade appeared in the Gypsy’s hand. He slapped the grip into Gray’s palm. In turn, Gray tossed him the flashlight.

“Hold the beam underwater!” he ordered and dove out into the growing lake.

The current grabbed him and whipped him around the edge of the room. He didn’t fight it. He let the force churn him to the far side of the cave. He knew when he’d reached it, sensing the raw power of the jetting spring below. He twisted and kicked toward the opposite wall.

Conscious or not, only one thing could be holding Rosauro down beneath the water.

Pressure.

Gray dove to where the spring had drained out of the cavern. In the dim light of the flashlight, he spotted a struggling form trapped in the drainage slot. Rosauro had been sucked tight against the hole, one arm swallowed down its throat. Gray heard of people drowning, pinned to swimming pool drains. This was a force a hundred times as fierce.

Gray grabbed her free arm and pulled himself down to her. He braced his legs to either side of the trough. She stared up at him. Even in the weak light, he saw the raw panic on her face.

Gray slashed out with the dagger. He’d lost one teammate to drowning—he wasn’t about to lose another. The blade sliced through the straps of Rosauro’s backpack. Half the bag had been sucked into the hole, holding her trapped. Once cut free, Gray dropped the dagger, grabbed her around the chest, and heaved with his legs.

For a moment, she remained stuck. Then the pack shifted deeper into the hole, weakening the pressure enough for Gray to pop her out. He tumbled back with her in his arms. He let the spin of the current carry them toward the light and the stairwell.

The water had risen to within a foot of the roof.

A grinding boom of stone echoed. The current suddenly slammed harder as the cavern wall gave way behind him.

Surging forward, Gray kicked off the bottom and up into the flooded stairwell.

Gasping, he surfaced into Luca’s arms. Luca helped Gray haul Rosauro up the stairs. She coughed and choked. Water spilled from her lips. But she took deep gulping breaths between.

She used one breath to spit out a curse in Spanish that would burn even the hairs off Kowalski’s ears.

Behind them, the chamber flooded to the roof, and the water level suddenly churned up after them.

“Time to go,” Gray said.

He pulled Rosauro to her feet and waved Elizabeth and Luca ahead. Rosauro was weak-kneed, but with water surging at their heels, she steadied enough to run on her own. Still, she cradled her left arm, strained from the suction.

They fled upward, chased by a flume of rising floodwaters.

Reaching the top, Elizabeth slithered backward out the opening, hung from her hands, then dropped to the floor below.

“Go!” Gray called to Luca when the man hesitated.

Luca obeyed and disappeared.

Gray helped Rosauro through the black marble door. She dangled from her good arm, then dropped. Gray followed her as water flooded the last step and washed over him in a wave.

He leaped away, clearing his fingers a second before the surge of water struck the door and slammed it closed. He landed and stared up. With the marble door cut at an angle, it could only rotate in one direction. The water pressure now held it closed.

Self-sealing.

Turning, he heard a roar echoing from the canyon. Lightning flashed. Churning white water flowed across the valley floor. The canyon was flooding, too, but this was a natural flood—not the consequence of Gray’s ham-fisted fumbling.

He stared at the volume of water coursing through the canyon.

No wonder these buildings had been built into the cliffs.

Gray realized one other thing.

Luca had noted it, too, and whispered, “Where is everyone?”

As if hearing his question, Masterson limped into view by the door, leaning on his cane. He’d been out of sight on the porch outside. Probably keeping an eye on the flooding waters with the others.

“Thank God,” the professor said. “You’d been down there bloody long enough. What did you find?”

Elizabeth stepped forward, excited. “The answers to everything! It was amazing.”

“It that right?”

Behind Masterson, more figures rushed into view.

Others flooded in from the two side rooms. They all wore black, bristling with assault weapons ready at their shoulders.

The Russian commandos.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Masterson said. “Since your father refused to.”

Kowalski was shoved into view at the outer door, hands on his head. His right eyebrow was split, bleeding down his face. Soldiers forced him to his knees.

“They killed Abe,” he growled out. “Shot him like a dog.”

Masterson shrugged. “And why not? He was achuta. Dogs are treated better in India.”

The soldiers spread out around them.

Elizabeth stared at the professor, stunned, hardly able to speak. Still, heat fired through her words, realizing the depth of the betrayal here. “It was you! You betrayed my father!”

“I had no choice, Elizabeth. He’d been getting too close to the truth.”

Gray went cold. He understood the game that had been played out here. Masterson had been paid to keep an eye on Dr. Polk’s research, to feed his data to his superiors…but once Elizabeth’s father got too close, he had to be taken out of the game.

Who was behind it all?

Masterson must have recognized the icy fury in Gray’s eyes. He backed a step away, though there was nothing Gray could do. Masterson waved his cane. “Commander Pierce, it seems for now you and the others are needed alive. But maybe not the big fellow here.”

He pointed his cane at Kowalski.

“Kill him.”

Kowalski’s eyes got huge.

Gray lunged forward, but three rifle barrels butted against his chest.

Elizabeth shouted out, “Please, Hayden, no! I beg you!”

Gray heard the catch in her voice, so did Masterson.

The professor glanced between Elizabeth and Kowalski—then rolled his eyes. “Fine. Only because I owe your father. But at the first sign of trouble from any of you, we start shooting.”

Masterson stared over to Gray. “You wanted to know where Archibald went?” He turned and headed away. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

THIRD

Chapter 15

September 7, 5:05 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk poled through the swamps as best he could with one hand. But they dared not stop. They’d been hunted throughout the night. Stabilizing the oar-pole in the crook of his stumped arm, he pulled and shoved with his good hand. The raft glided silently across the drowned landscape.

Over the course of the night, his eyes had adjusted to the wan light from the moon. He had grown skilled at maneuvering the raft. They had several close calls as an airboat searched the swamps for them. The whining noise of its fan and its bright searchlight gave Monk plenty of warning to seek shelter. Also thick mists hung low over the water, which helped keep them hidden.

Still, they’d almost been caught once, when Monk had misjudged a sluggish current and struck a tree with a loud crack. The airboat had heard and come rushing over. He tried his best to hide under the branches of a willow, but they were sure to be spotted if the searchers looked too closely.

Their salvation came from an unexpected place.

As the airboat slowed and throttled down, Kiska had folded her hands over her mouth, took a deep breath, then let out a low bleating complaint of an elk cow. They’d heard the calls periodically throughout the night. Monk remembered how the girl had demonstrated her talent, an ear for perfect pitch and mimicry, mirroring birdcalls with an uncanny accuracy. The hunters had still searched, but less thoroughly, and moved onward after a minute.

Still they could not count on such luck forever. And worse yet, Monk knew they were slowly being herded closer toward Lake Karachay and its pall of radioactivity. The airboat swept the safer regions of the swamp, which only left them one recourse: to stray closer and closer in the direction of the lake.

Every hour, Monk risked lighting a single match to check the color of their dosimeters. The pink warning had darkened to full red. Konstantin had informed Monk matter-of-factly that one full day at that dosage was lethal. As Monk poled through floating rafts of weed and algae, his skin itched with the grainy sense that he was slowly being poisoned.

And the children were even more susceptible.

The trio slept fitfully, curled with Marta on the raft. An edge of terror kept them jumping at every croak and hoot from the nighttime swamp. Marta had finally taken to the trees. She had done so periodically, even drawing off the hunters once by hooting and luring the airboat in the opposite direction. Her diversion bought them a full hour of reprieve.

She was one smart ape.

Monk prayed she was as smart as he hoped—for a danger greater than the threat of radiation poisoning loomed.

To the east, the dark skies paled with the approach of dawn. Without the cover of night, they would quickly be discovered. To survive, they had to find a way of escaping their tail.

That meant leaving a trail of bread crumbs.

Konstantin and Kiska had shredded the wrappings from their protein bars and gathered their empty water bottles. As Monk churned a path through the weeds, disturbing a clear track through the vegetation, the two children had dropped bits and pieces of garbage into the water.

“Not too much,” Monk warned in a whisper. “Spread them farther apart.”

Monk had spent the last hour searching for the perfect spot in the dark swamp. He’d finally found it: a long curving course, lined by dense willow groves and black patches of fir trees. Their timing had to be perfect. They would have only one shot. But with the far shore still a good two miles away and dawn fast approaching, they were doomed if they didn’t take the risk.

The final member of their party, Pyotr, sat in the middle of the raft, his arms wrapped around his legs. As he rocked in place, he stared toward the stern of the raft, as if watching his friends spread their bread crumbs, but Monk knew the boy’s gaze stretched much farther.

Reaching the end of the watery course, Monk swung the pole to the front and prodded it deep. He bolstered it with his shoulder and stopped the raft. This is where they’d make their stand.

Borsakov sat next to the airboat’s pilot. The seats were perched high above the flat-bottomed aluminum hull. Ahead of them crouched two of his soldiers; one manned the searchlight at the boat’s prow, the other kept a rifle ready at his shoulder.

After five hours of searching, Borsakov’s ears ached from all the noise. Behind him, the engine rumbled as the giant fan spun. The broken metal guard over the blades rattled and banged with every turn. The prop-wash that propelled the craft shook reeds and branches behind the boat.

The pilot wore the only set of earphones. He rested one hand on the steering stick, the other on the throttle. The smell of smoke and diesel fuel masked the mossy dampness of the swamp. They idled through a shallow section of open water. The searchlight swept the reeds that rimmed the edges.

Over the course of the night, they’d seen wild boar and elk, scared eagles from nests, glided past beaver dams and through clouds of insects. Their searchlight had reflected off thousands of smaller eyes, denizens of the swamp.

Still, they’d seen no sign of the escapees.

And on their last tank of fuel, they had until—

A simian scream cut through the engine’s rumble. It came from the right. The soldiers at the prow heard it, too. Both searchlight and rifle swung in that direction. Borsakov touched the pilot’s shoulder and pointed.

In the flash of light, something large swung across a narrow gap in the treeline, then disappeared into the forest. Borsakov knew one of the laboratory animals had also vanished with the children. A chimpanzee.

The engine roared louder as the pilot pushed the throttle stick forward. The boat sped toward the gap, gliding up on a cushion of air. The craft slowed as they reached the edge of the open water. The reeds here were bent, where someone had pushed through to reach a side channel.

Finally…

Borsakov pointed ahead.

Past the gap, a narrow channel snaked ahead, lined by willows and choked by floating patches of weed. The craft sped up. The searchlight swept to all sides, piercing through the darkness. The rifleman reached down to the water and scooped up an empty plastic water bottle.

Someone had definitely been through here.

Borsakov waved the pilot to a faster clip, sensing his targets couldn’t be far. The course ambled in gentle curves. The boat followed swiftly, sweeping right and left.

The searchlight revealed more debris floating in the water, bits of trash and more bottles. Too much. Something was wrong here. Their prey had never been this foolish. Suspicious, Borsakov reached to the pilot and squeezed his shoulder. He motioned him to slow down.

Monk heard the engine’s roar lower to a rumble.

Crouched with the children, he watched the airboat glide into view around the last bend in the channel, plainly throttling down, going too slowly.

Not good.

The searchlight speared forward, gliding across the water straight at them. They would be spotted in a second. Their only hope—

—from out of the dark forest to the left, a dark shadow leaped headlong over the boat. It flew high, clearing the blades, but from its clenched feet, a handful of dark objects were tossed at the boat.

They struck the giant fan like bomb loads.

The shotgun shells from the cabin.

Monk heard them pop against the blades. The fan sliced through the plastic casings, which didn’t ignite, but which still exploded outward with stinging birdshot.

Cries erupted, half surprise and half pain as the crew was struck by flying pellets. The pilot, high in his seat, ducked and dropped in fear. He hit his stick, and the engine roared to life. The boat kicked forward like a stung jackrabbit, off kilter by the turn. The pilot wrested the control stick.

The searchlight blazed down the channel and swept over them, highlighting them in its brilliance. Monk saw the copilot scream and point.

Too late, buddy.

The two soldiers in front were suddenly flung backward. They struck the others. Tangled in a group, they hit the metal guard at the rear of the boat. The airboat jackknifed into the air and barrel-rolled.

Monk heard a scream of agony and a stuttered grind of blades. Blood and bone sprayed out of the back of the fan like a contrail—then the boat struck the water upside down, landing hard with a gasp of diesel smoke and a drowning choke from its engine. The searchlight still glowed out of the murky water.

Monk turned away. Earlier, with the children’s help, he had braided fishing line from the cabin into a translucent rope as thick as his finger—then he rigged it shoulder-height across the channel. It had clotheslined the crew and flipped the unstable boat.

From out of the trees above the raft, Marta dropped and landed leadenly to the planks. Pyotr was immediately in her arms. She sat on her haunches, gasping, panting. Still, she hugged Pyotr. Her eyes, though, were fixed on Monk, glassy and bright in the moonlight.

Monk nodded to her, grateful, yet at the same time, slightly unnerved.

He had needed the airboat to fly up the channel, drawn by the sure trail of their prey. Marta’s bombardment had been intended only as a distraction to keep them from seeing the rope strung across the channel.

She had done her job brilliantly.

Pyotr clung to her. After explaining the plan earlier, the boy had sat with Marta and held out the shotgun shells. He spoke slowly to her in Russian, but Monk suspected the true understanding between the pair arose from much deeper. In the end, she had taken the shells in the toes of her feet, leaped into the trees, and vanished.

Monk poled out across the next channel. Here a sluggish current propelled them onward. Toward the distant shore. Though relieved that his trap had worked, Monk knew with certainty that they were sweeping toward even greater danger.

But he had no choice.

Millions of lives were at stake.

Still, Monk studied Marta and the three children. To him, with no memory of another life, they were his world. They were all that mattered. He would do all he could to protect them.

As he urged the raft along the current, he recalled the painful flashback at the cabin as he had half drowsed.

The taste of cinnamon, soft lips…

What life had been stolen from him?

And could he ever get it back?

12:04 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Just after midnight, Kat hung up the phone and stood up from the table. She glanced toward the window into the neighboring hospital room. She had finished a conference call with Director Crowe and Sean McKnight. The two were up in Painter’s office, waging an interdepartmental war from their bunker. Both men were engaged in a power struggle across the various intelligence agencies.

All over the fate of the girl.

Kat, with her own background in the field, had offered what counsel she could, but she could do no more. It was up to the two of them to find some way to thwart John Mapplethorpe.

Kat knew where she could do the most good.

She crossed toward the door that led into the hospital room. It was guarded by an armed corpsman. She paused by the window of one-way glass and stared into the room.

Propped by pillows in the bed, Sasha sat with a coloring book in her lap and a box of Crayola crayons. With an intravenous line still in her arm, she worked on a page, her face intent but calm.

Sasha suddenly glanced up from her work and stared straight at Kat. The glass was mirrored on the other side; there was no way the child could see that she was there. But Kat could not shake the sense that the girl was looking at her, could see her.

To one side, Yuri sat in a chair. He had pulled Sasha from the brink of death, proving his skill. He seemed as relieved as Kat at the girl’s recovery. Satisfied and exhausted, he sat slumped in his seat, chin on his chest, lightly drowsing.

Kat turned and nodded to the guard. He had already unlocked the door and swung it open for her. She crossed into the room. McBride still sat in the same chair. He had only moved to make a few phone calls and to use the restroom, always under guard.

On the other side of the bed from Yuri, Lisa and Malcolm stood, both with charts in hand. They compared notes and numbers, as cryptic as any code.

Lisa smiled at her as she joined them. “Her recovery is remarkable. I could spend years just studying the treatment regimen.”

“But it’s only a stopgap,” Kat said and nodded to Yuri. “Not a cure.”

Lisa’s expression sobered and turned back to the girl. “That’s true.”

Yuri had related the long-term prognosis for Sasha. Her augment shortened her life span. Like a flame set to a candle, it would burn through her, wear her away to nothing. The greater the talent, the hotter the flame.

Kat had asked how long Yuri expected the child to live. The answer had turned her cold. With her level of talent, another four or five years at best.

Kat had balked at such a pronouncement.

Contrarily, McBride had seemed relieved, expressing his assurances that American ingenuity could surely double that life span, which still meant Sasha would not reach her twentieth birthday.

Lisa continued, “The only hope for her is to remove the implant. She would lose her ability, but she’d also survive.”

McBride spoke up behind them. “She might survive, but in what state? The augment, besides heightening her savant talent, also minimizes the symptoms of her autism. Take the augment away, and you’ll be left with a child disconnected from the world.”

“That’s better than being in the grave,” Kat said.

“Is it?” McBride challenged her. “Who are you to judge? With the augment, she has a full life, as short as that might be. Many children are born doomed from the start, given life sentences by medical conditions. Leukemia, AIDS, birth defects. Shouldn’t we seek to give them the best quality of life, rather than quantity?”

Kat scowled. “You only want to use her.”

“Since when is mutual benefit such a bad thing?”

Kat turned her back on him, frustrated with his arguments and justifications. It was monstrous. How could he rationalize any of this? Especially with the life of a child in the balance.

Sasha continued to work in her coloring book. She drew with a dark green crayon. Her hand moved rapidly across the page, filling in one spot, then another, totally at random.

“Should she be coloring?” Kat asked.

Yuri stirred, roused by their talking. “Some release is good after such an episode,” he mumbled, clearing his throat. “Like opening a pressure valve. As long as the augment is not activated remotely, triggering her, such calm work will ease her mentally.”

“Well, she does seem happy,” Kat admitted.

As she worked, Sasha’s face was relaxed with a faint ghost of a smile. She straightened and reached a small hand to Kat. She spoke in Russian and tugged at her sleeve with her tiny fingers.

Kat glanced to Yuri.

He offered a tired grin. “She said you should be happy, too.”

Sasha pushed her book toward Kat, as if she wanted Kat to join her in coloring the pages. Kat sank into a seat and accepted the book. She frowned when she saw the girl had not been filling in lines but had been working on a blank page. With amazing clarity, she had drawn a scene. A man poled a wooden raft through a dark forest with a faint suggestion of other figures seated behind him.

Kat’s hands began to tremble. She saw who manned the raft. She struggled to understand. It looked like Monk. But she had no memory of Monk ever being on a raft. Why would the girl draw such a thing?

Sasha must have sensed her distress. Her smile wilted to confusion. Her lips trembled, as though fearful she had done something wrong. She stared from Yuri to Kat. Tears glistened. She mumbled in Russian, apologetic and scared.

Yuri scooted closer and reassured her with the soft voice of a grandfather. Kat forced down her reaction—for the child’s sake. Still, her heart pounded. She remembered seeing Yuri stiffen when he saw the child’s earlier picture. At the time, for a split second, she had thought maybe he had recognized the face on the paper, but that was impossible.

McBride climbed out of his chair and approached the bed, plainly curious.

Kat ignored him. It was none of his business. Instead, her gaze fixed on Yuri. The man met her stare over the top of Sasha’s head. Like the child, he wore an apologetic expression.

Why would—

A muffled explosion rocked through the facility, echoing down from above. Alarm bells rang out. All eyes turned toward the ceiling, but Kat leaped to her feet. She was a fraction of a second too slow.

McBride lunged out and grabbed Dr. Lisa Cummings by her blond French braid. He pulled her toward him while he backpedaled to the wall. Kat Bryant grabbed for him but missed. He slammed back into the corner, out of direct sight line from the door and the window.

His other hand pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket. He pressed a button on its side, and the top half flipped in his fingers, revealing a small barrel. He shoved it hard against Lisa’s throat, pointing it up toward her skull.

“Don’t move,” he whispered in her ear.

Cell phone guns had become the scourge of security forces. But the device Mapplethorpe had given him was state-of-the-art. He could even take calls on it. It had passed through the security search and scanner without a blip of concern. Chambered in .22-caliber rounds, there was unfortunately a limit to the weapon.

“I have five bullets!” he shouted to the stunned room. “I will kill the doctor first—then the child.”

A guard leveled a weapon at him, but he kept shielded behind Lisa’s body.

“Drop your gun!” he boomed at the man.

The guard kept his position, weapon never wavering.

“No one has to die!” McBride said. He nodded his head upward. “We only want the child. So put down your pistol!”

Kat straightened from her tumbled grab. She had come close to nabbing him. He would have to watch her closely. In turn, she eyed him, studying him like a book. Still, the woman motioned for the guard to lower his weapon.

“Drop it and kick it over here!” McBride ordered.

With another nod from Kat, the sidearm skittered over to his toes.

McBride’s mission was simple: to secure the child until Mapplethorpe and his forces arrived.

“All we have to do is wait!” he said. “So no sudden moves, no heroes.”

As the explosion rocked though the subterranean bunker, Painter instinctively turned to the wall monitor on his left. The large screen displayed a live feed from Sasha’s room.

Painter shot to his feet. His heart pounded, and his vision narrowed with fury. He brought up the sound with a blind punch to his keyboard.

“No sudden moves, no heroes!”

Sean rose on the other side of the desk. Gunfire echoed down to them. Painter brought up the camera feed from the top level of Sigma and displayed it on the screen behind his desk. He tore his eyes away from Lisa and checked the other monitor. Smoke filled the passageway. Helmeted figures in Kevlar vests and face masks ran low through the pall, rifles on their shoulders.

“I can’t believe the bastard’s goddamn nerve,” Sean said.

There was no need to guess who he meant.

Mapplethorpe.

“They’re going for the girl,” Sean growled out.

A bullhorn echoed from the topmost level of Sigma. “EVERYONE DOWN ON THE FLOOR! ANY RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE!”

Sean crossed to Painter. “There’s no way this is sanctioned. We would have been issued a stand-down order first. The bastard’s gone rogue.” Sean turned toward him. “You know what you have to do.”

Painter’s attention returned to Lisa. He saw the weapon pressed under her jaw, a tender neck he kissed each morning. But he slowly nodded. There was a fail-safe if Sigma was ever under attack by a hostile force.

But first he needed to get his people out of harm’s way. This war was between Painter and Mapplethorpe. He picked up the phone. “Brant.”

“Sir!” His aide’s voice was curt and ready.

“Sound Protocol Alpha.”

“Yes, sir.”

A new klaxon rang out, ordering all personnel to evacuate to the nearest emergency exit. Mapplethorpe just wanted a clear path to the child. To protect his people, Painter intended to provide that.

Sean headed to the door. “I’m going up. I’ll attempt to negotiate, but if I fail…”

“Understood.” Painter turned, pulled a drawer, and removed a Sig Sauer P220 pistol. “Take this.”

Sean shook his head. “Firepower isn’t going to get us out of this.”

His friend left. Painter gripped the pistol and studied the screen. He had one last duty to Sigma. He shifted to his computer and typed in the fail-safe code, then pressed his thumb to the fingerprint reader.

A red square appeared, layered over a blue schematic of the facility’s air-ventilation system. The default countdown was set at fifteen minutes. Painter doubled the time and synchronized it with his watch to go active at 0100. He stared between the door and the wall screen. He had a lot to accomplish in such a short time. Still…

Typing rapidly, Painter entered the final code to activate. The numbers started counting down.

With pistol in hand, he ran for the door.

7:05 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

As the sun first peeked over the surrounding mountains, Monk shoved with his pole and drove the raft deep into the reeds. The prow ground into a muddy bank. At long last, they’d made landfall, as soggy as that might be.

“Stay here,” he ordered the kids.

Using the pole, he tested for solid footing. Satisfied, he climbed off the raft, then turned and helped Pyotr and Kiska onto a hillock of grass nearby. Konstantin leaped on his own, as spry as ever, but the boy landed roughly. His exhaustion showed in the dark lines under his eyes and the tremble as he stood. Marta fared little better, lunging with both legs and landing in a knuckled crouch.

Monk waved them onward. The way remained muddy and sodden for another quarter mile, but slowly the ground rose out of the swamp and firmed underfoot. The forest shed the watery willows and stood taller with birches and spruces. Meadows opened, green with wild gentian and edelweiss.

They reached the top of a rise, and a clear view spread ahead of them.

A mile away, a small town, split by a silver-flowing creek, dotted the lower slope of the neighboring mountain. Monk studied the place. It appeared long deserted and abandoned. The derelict mix of stone and wooden buildings climbed the slopes around a switchbacking gravel road. An old mill neighbored the rocky creek. Its waterwheel lay fallen and broken across the stream like a bridge. Several other structures had collapsed in on themselves, and the place had a wild overgrown look to it, buried in high grasses and lush with juniper bushes and fir trees.

“It’s an old mining town,” Konstantin explained. The boy unfolded the map, to check their bearings. “No one lives there. Not safe.”

“How much farther until we reach the mine shaft?” Monk asked.

The boy measured with his thumb on the map, then pointed to the ramshackle collection of buildings. “Another half mile past the town. Not far.”

Konstantin glanced off to the right of the town. His expression soured. He didn’t have to say anything. Half hidden behind the shoulder of the mountain, a large greenish black body of water stretched off to the horizon.

Lake Karachay.

Monk checked his badge. It still registered a reddish hue. But to reach the town, they would have to head directly toward the lake, deeper into its radioactive shadow.

“How hot is that place?” Monk asked, nodding to the town.

Konstantin refolded the map and stood. “We should not stop for a picnic.”

Monk stared back at the boy, appreciating his attempt at levity. But neither of them laughed. Still, Monk hooked an arm around the boy as they marched ahead. He gave Konstantin a reassuring squeeze and earned a silly grin in response. A rare sight.

Pyotr and Kiska followed with Marta in tow.

They had made it this far.

There was no turning back.

Half a mile away, Borsakov watched his targets vanish over a ridgeline. With a silent curse directed at the man who led the children, he knelt beside the beached raft used by the others and slipped his rifle from his shoulder. Before he continued, his weapon needed to be cleaned. After the long swim and slog through the swamp, his rifle was caked with mud and full of water. He broke the weapon down and carefully inspected each section: barrel, bolt assembly, magazine. He rinsed and dried all the parts thoroughly. Satisfied, he reassembled the rifle. The familiar routine returned him to a calm, determined status.

Once done, he stood up and shouldered his weapon.

Having lost his radio, Borsakov was on his own, the only survivor from the airboat crash. The pilot’s arm had been severed by the fan. Another soldier’s head had been caved in, struck by the edge of the flipping boat. The last had been found floating facedown, drowned.

Only Borsakov remained, though he bore a long jagged cut down his calf, sliced to the bone. He had used one of his dead men’s shirts to wrap and bind the injury. He would need medical attention to prevent losing his leg to infection from the muddy water.

But first he had a job to do.

Failure was not an option.

Limping on his bad leg, Borsakov set off after his prey.

Chapter 16

September 7, 8:11 A.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

“Wake up!”

Gray heard the words, but his brain took another moment to decipher them. A stinging slap cut through his grogginess. Light filled his head then dissolved into watery images.

Luca leaned over him and shook Gray’s shoulders.

Coughing, Gray pushed the man back and rose to an elbow. He stared around the room. He was in a bare cement cell with peeling, blistered paint and a rusted red door. Light came from a single barred window high up on the wall. Beneath the window, Kowalski sat on a moldy thin mattress, his head hanging between his knees, groaning with nausea.

Gray took a deep breath, forced himself to relax, and recalled what had happened. He remembered a hard climb out of the canyon at gunpoint, a short helicopter ride, then a cargo plane on a rain-swept airstrip. He fingered a bruise on his neck. Once aboard the plane, they’d been drugged.

Gray had no idea where they’d been taken.

“Elizabeth…Rosauro…?” he asked hoarsely.

Luca shook his head. He slumped against the wall and sank to his bottom. “I don’t know where they are. Maybe another cell.”

“Any idea where we are?”

Luca shrugged. Kowalski groaned.

Gray gained his feet, waited for the world to stop spinning, then stepped toward the window. It was too high to reach on his own.

Kowalski lifted his head, noted where Gray was staring. “Pierce, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“Get up,” he ordered. “Help me.”

Kowalski held his stomach but rose to his feet. He clenched his fingers together into a stirrup. “What do you think I am? Your personal ladder?”

“Ladders complain a lot less.”

Gray mounted the man’s grip, reached to the lower lip of the window, and with Kowalski’s help, he chinned up to the bars. He gazed across a strange landscape. A town, half consumed by forest, spread outward. The place looked dilapidated and shell-shocked. Roofs were covered in moss or collapsed, windows shattered into broken fangs, fire escapes dripped with icicles of rust, and weeds and bushes sprouted out of cracked asphalt. Across the street, a faded billboard advertised some sort of fair, depicting a Ferris wheel and carnival rides. In the foreground, a stylized version of a strappingly robust family headed toward the amusements.

Across the city, Gray spotted the same Ferris wheel from the billboard outlined against the barren sky. A lonely relic of former glory. Gray’s limbs grew leaden at the sight. He knew where he was. The abandoned amusement ride had become emblematic for the city.

“Chernobyl,” he mumbled and dropped back down to the floor.

But why had they been brought here?

Gray recalled the pathologist’s report on Dr. Polk’s body. The radiation signature suggested the professor had been poisoned here. Though further testing by Malcolm Jennings had clouded this assessment.

What was going on?

Over the next ten minutes, Gray searched the entire cell and tested the door. Though rusted, it remained secure. Gray heard sounds of someone out there: a shuffle of foot, a soft cough. Most likely a guard. He must have heard them talking and radioed his superiors because shortly thereafter a tromping of boots approached the door.

Too many to ambush.

Gray stepped back as the door pulled open. With pistols pointed, soldiers in black-and-gray uniforms stormed into the room. They opened the way for a tall man to step forward, framed in the doorway. His features were not unlike those of the father from the faded billboard outside. His face was all angles and hard corners; a trimmed beard defined a strong chin. He wore a navy blue suit with a red silk tie, tailored handsomely to his physique. Even down to his—

“Nice shoes,” Kowalski commented.

The man glanced to his polished black oxfords and frowned at the unexpected assessment of his wardrobe.

“Well, they are,” Kowalski said with a note of defensiveness.

The newcomer’s eyes shifted to Gray. “Dobraye utro, Commander Pierce. If you’ll come with me, we have some business to discuss and not much time.”

Gray remained where he was. “Not until you tell me where the two women—”

A hand waved dismissively. “Elizabeth Polk and Dr. Shay Rosauro. Both fine, I assure you. In fact, their accommodations are a bit more refined. But we had very little time to prepare. If you’ll come this way, please.”

The six soldiers with pistols diminished the politeness of the invitation. Led out into a hallway, Gray studied his surroundings. Cells lined both sides, plainly an abandoned jail. Through some of the open doors, he spotted standing water, rusted overturned beds, and refuse piled high into corners. It made their cell’s accommodations seem generous in comparison.

The hallway ended at a guard station. It had a view across an overgrown, weedy jail yard. In the distance, off by the horizon, Gray noted the tall ventilation tower that marked the Chernobyl reactor.

Closer at hand, a chair squeaked with an almost nervous sound.

Gray turned. A table stood in the middle of the room. Masterson sat behind it, straightening in his seat, again dressed all in white, looking well rested and smug. Gray had to refrain himself from leaping over and snapping the bastard’s neck. But he needed some answers, and cooperation seemed the best way of obtaining it.

Forced to a chair on the opposite side of the table, Gray sat down. A gun remained pointed at the back of his head.

Another stranger waited in the room. She stood behind the table. Her black hair framed a smoky face, stoic and unmoving. She was also dressed in a black suit, a close match in style to that of the man who had led Gray here. The stranger crossed to the table and sat down, barely acknowledging Masterson.

The man folded his hands atop the table. “My name is Senator Nicolas Solokov. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

Gray said nothing, which caused the man’s mouth to quirk with disappointment.

“No? Well, that will be changing,” he responded. He waved to the slim woman. She crossed to Gray, moving with a stiff grace. She sank to a knee beside his chair, tilted her head, and reached toward his hand. Before she touched him, she cocked an eyebrow, inquiring permission.

Gray shrugged. She gently lifted his hand and rested her palm beneath his. Her fingertips tickled the underside of his wrist. Her eyes stared deeply into his.

“We’ve already had a conversation with Elizabeth Polk,” Nicolas said.

“Dr. Polk’s daughter informed us of your discovery in India. Truly amazing. That information alone was worth transporting you all here. It’s fascinating to contemplate that our heritage extends all the way to ancient Greece, to the famous Oracle of Delphi.”

Gray cleared his throat. “Your heritage?”

He waved to the woman. “And Elena’s. We’re all from the same genetic bloodline.”

Gray remembered Luca’s story. “From the lost Gypsies.”

“Yes. Dr. Masterson has informed me that you were told about the unfortunate, but necessary acquisition of those children. In fact, my father was one of those Gypsy children. And I believe you’ve met another of our extended family. Little Sasha. A girl with a special talent.”

Gray knew to whom he must be referring, but he kept his features bland, feigning ignorance.

Elena turned to Nicolas and spoke softly in Russian.

The senator nodded. “So you have met Sasha. Please do not trouble yourself to lie.” He motioned to the woman at his feet. “Elena is quite—well, perceptive, shall we say. Her touch is very sensitive, measuring the heat of your skin, your pulse. She is also keyed into your pupils and breath. Nothing escapes her. She is my personal lie detector.”

Nicolas pointed to his ear. Elena turned, and with her other hand, she parted her hair behind her ear. Gray spotted a familiar curve of surgical steel. The same implant as the girl’s. The woman was the adult equivalent of Sasha, only with a different savant talent.

“She is quite remarkable,” Nicolas growled, his words warmly proud, but with a hint of something darker beneath.

Gray studied the man, noticing something missing. “So then where is your implant?”

Nicolas’s eyes narrowed back upon him. Gray enjoyed the flicker of irritation on his face, plainly a sore point. The man’s fingers combed over his right ear in a self-conscious gesture. “Such a course was not my path, I’m afraid.”

Gray’s mind tracked the implication. If Nicolas wasn’t augmented, then he must have been born without any savant talent. Yet someone had placed him in a position of power in Russia. Why? What was the endgame here?

Nicolas continued, “Back to Sasha. From all the turmoil going on in Washington, we’ve been having trouble gaining clear intelligence on her whereabouts. That was the main reason you were brought here from India.”

Versus being shot on the spot like Abhi Bhanjee.

“We are concerned about Sasha’s welfare and want her returned. So first of all, we’d like to know where she is and who has her.”

Gray stared straight at Nicolas. “I don’t know.”

At his side, Elena shook her head.

“Would you like to try again? I’m attempting to keep this civil. But we do have four of your friends here.”

“I can’t say for sure,” Gray answered. “The last I saw her, she was in the care of our organization.”

Nicolas glanced to Elena, who nodded. It was the truth.

“And I assume you do not work for John Mapplethorpe, since the traitor attempted to assassinate you and Dr. Masterson at the hotel in Agra.”

“No, in fact, we’re fighting to keep the child away from him.”

“Wise. That man is far from trustworthy. So then perhaps we truly can negotiate. Especially since we now have something worth trading.”

“First, what do you want with the girl?” Gray asked.

“She belongs here. With the rest of her family. We can care for her much better than anyone in your country.”

“Perhaps so. But why do you want her? To what end?”

Nicolas stared at Gray, studying him with shrewd eyes. Gray sensed a depth of cunning, along with a hard conceit, someone seeking recognition, compensating perhaps for a lack of talent elsewhere.

Gray pressed that weakness. “Do you have a plan that goes beyond the exploitation of children like Sasha?”

His eyes sparked. “Do not underestimate the scope of our initiative. Nor paint us with such malicious intent. We have nothing but the most humanitarian goals in mind, to better the world for all. The sacrifice required of a few children is infinitesimally small when compared to the atrocities that go ignored every day in the world.”

Gray read the need for validation behind the growing heat in his words. “What goals?”

“Nothing short of changing the course of human history.”

Here the man’s vanity shone brightly. He even sat up straighter and leaned toward Gray.

“Every few centuries, a great figure rises who abruptly changes history—someone who alters the fundamental path of mankind. I’m talking along the lines of the great prophets. Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus Christ. Someone who thinks so differently, who sees the world through such unique eyes, that his very viewpoint bends humanity in a new direction. From where do such figures arise? Where does this uniqueness of mind come from?”

Masterson stirred, stretching a kink in his back.

Gray recalled the professor’s discussion about autism and its role in human history. And the quote he had used. If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.

“Why wait for the right toss of the genetic dice?” Nicolas asked. “If such uniqueness could be recognized, singled out, and harnessed for the good of all, imagine the new age of enlightenment that could be fostered. Especially if such uniqueness could be heightened to astounding levels.”

Nicolas’s eyes settled on Elena.

Gray began to understand the scope of the project’s vision. It was no mere spy program. Nicolas’s organization planned to take control of the reins to human history by using the augmented individuals like draft horses. And Gray began to suspect why Nicolas had been put in such a place of power. Someone was grooming him as a figurehead, propped and supported behind the scenes by the augmented children. Gray tried to imagine all that talent at the bid of one individual.

Gray could not hide his horror and shock. “How do you plan to—?”

“That’s enough!” Nicolas barked. “Now that you better understand our intent, you can understand why we want Sasha returned. She is important to the program…and especially significant to me.”

Gray read something in his eyes. “Why you?”

“Why?” He stared hard at Gray. “Because she’s more than a test subject, she’s my daughter.”

Elena’s fingernails scraped the underside of Gray’s wrist. The woman turned sharply toward Nicolas. Apparently this was as equally surprising to her. No wonder Gray and the others had been dragged all the way to Chernobyl.

“Before this day is over, you will know what I am capable of.” Nicolas leaned toward Gray, his eyes fiery with determination. “And I will get my daughter back.”

8:20 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

General-Major Savina Martov stood in the heart of Operation Saturn. Behind her, the mine train waited on the tracks, snapping and crackling, smelling of smoke and oil. It rested a hundred yards from where the tracks ended at Mine Complex 337, an abandoned uranium mine that honeycombed the neighboring Ural Mountains. M.C. 337 was where the prisoners housed at Chelyabinsk 88 had spent eighteen hours a day laboring in the dark, slowly being poisoned.

Now it served as a dumping ground for broken mining equipment and piles of rock from Operation Saturn. Over the course of five years, a small team of miners and demolition experts had filled several old shafts to the brim with the debris dug out of this site.

Operation Saturn occupied a small man-made cavern off the train tracks. The blasted room—the size of a hotel lobby—was framed by oil-soaked scaffolding and crowded with mining equipment: conveyor belts, hydraulic winches, rock dusters, water pumps, hoses, all surrounding a compact drill rig with a drummed tungsten-carbide bit. Most of it would be left where it stood or hauled out with the next train.

Savina watched a backhoe dump a load of rock and rubble into one of the ore cars behind her. The train would make one last shipment to M.C. 337.

All was on schedule.

Still, she stood with her fists on her hips, legs apart, surveying the operation site. Her conversation with Nicolas still had her agitated. She had known he was bullheaded and prone to rash and dramatic decisions. She regretted informing him about Sasha. She had not thought he would react so foolishly. Where was his dispassion in such matters? They still had ten Omega subjects, more than enough to seed the new site in Moscow. The ten alone were powerful enough to hand him the world, to guide humanity to its new Renaissance, led by a resurrected Russian Empire. And the future czar would not have one Rasputin to counsel him, but ten. Ten prodigious savants, who together and augmented, could bend time and distance to serve him.

Did he not see that?

What was one child against such a vision?

Two if you counted Nicolas’s son, Pyotr. But the boy’s talent, while strong, was of little value. What use was empathy when it came to forging a new world? If anything, it was a hindrance. All that would be lost with the boy was his genetic potential. A significant loss, but not insurmountable. And there was still hope of recovering the boy. The last she’d heard from Lieutenant Borsakov was that he was about to head into the Asanov swamps. It would be hard to find anything in the dark, but with the sun now up, she expected results at any moment. Or so she had assured Nicolas.

And ultimately it did not matter. Nicolas would grow to see this.

A technician in a white smock, hard hat, and respirator mask approached her. He was an engineer from the St. Petersburg State Mining Institute. “Ready to test the board and iris.”

She nodded. After this final shakedown, the operation site would be evacuated. She’d had to push her crew these last two days in order to meet the shortened timetable. Nicolas’s operation had been scheduled to proceed today, followed by Savina’s in two weeks. But with the recent betrayal by Mapplethorpe, the decision had been made to initiate both operations on the same day. Once she heard of Nicolas’s success, she would proceed.

“Are there any problems?” she asked the engineer.

His voice was muffled in the respirator as they walked. “We’ve run all the diagnostics, rechecked the ammonium nitrate fuel oil concentrations, performed one final GPR scan of the overburden, and troubleshot all electrical systems. We’re ready on your order to clear the site and open the iris. We’re going to test fire it now.”

“Very good.”

Savina followed the man under the arch of scaffolding. The vehicle-mounted drill rig was already being driven out of the way. Men worked around the tight space: in the rigging, on the floor, and amid the equipment. She looked to the upper wall of the cavern. A two-meter-wide shaft sloped upward at a steep angle, lined by an idle conveyor belt, dripping with water from the hoses. Lights glowed at the far end of the shaft, almost half a kilometer away. Tiny shadows moved within the glow, motes in the brightness. The demolition team was doing one final inspection.

Savina appreciated their thoroughness.

Over fifty bore holes—as thick around as her thumb and a meter deep—had been drilled into the end of the shaft and packed with ANFO supercharges. The bores needled through a fault that lay beneath Lake Karachay. Wired to detonate in sequence, the charges would crack a gaping hole in the bottom of the poisonous lake, dumping its slurry of radioactive strontium and cesium straight down the shaft.

“Over here, General-Major.” The technician waved her away from the center of the cavern.

Set into the floor was a three-meter-wide circular hatch. She had obtained it from the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard in Murmansk. It was the latest missile silo door, composed of six flakes of half-meter-thick steel in the shape of an iris.

She stepped off of it and over to where a diagnostic laptop rested on a worktable. The technician had the engineering schematics open on the screen. Other men had stopped to watch.

He spoke into a radio, listened, then nodded to Savina. “We’re set in the control room. Ten seconds until firing.”

Savina crossed her arms. The control room was back in Chelyabinsk 88, in one of the old abandoned Soviet-era apartment buildings. Technicians manned the small room of monitors and computers. Once the site was evacuated, thirty different cameras would provide coverage of the area.

The engineer counted down the seconds. “Three…two…one…zero.”

A snap of an electrical circuit sounded from the silo door, and its steel petals opened like the iris on a camera. As they peeled wider, a low roar of water echoed up to her. She stepped to the iris and stared over the edge. A vertical shaft dropped two hundred meters through the rock.

The engineer joined her and pointed a heavy flashlight down the throat of the mine shaft. Far below, she spotted a silvery rush, reflecting the light. An underground river. There were several such waterways draining the Urals, massive aquifers flowing down from the highlands. On the far side of the mountains, the waters flooded into the Caspian Sea, but here the aquifers drained through a series of rivers, specifically the Techa and Ob, all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

Savina turned and looked up the sloped shaft that led to the fault line under Lake Karachay. It contained over one hundred times more strontium and cesium than was released in Chernobyl. And Chernobyl’s toxic plume had circled the globe. She stared back down the vertical shaft to the flowing aquifer.

It had been an ongoing threat. Geologists were well aware of the faults that underlay Lake Karachay. It was only a matter of time until an earthquake burst one of those fissures and dumped all that radioactivity into the drainage basin of the Ural Mountains. Studies done by geophysicists from Norway estimated that such a catastrophe would sterilize a good portion of the Arctic Ocean, one of the planet’s last great wildernesses. From there, its poisonous pall would sweep halfway around the planet, concentrating its worst effects across northern Europe. Conservative estimates put the death toll from primary radiation and secondary cancers at one hundred million. And that could easily double or triple from the resulting economic and environmental damage.

She stared from the sloped shaft above to the river below. Such a disaster had always been a constant but barely acknowledged threat. All nature needed was a little shove.

Then the world would burn.

Her breathing grew harder at the enormity of what was about to unfold. Out of that radiological fire, a new Russian Empire would rise, like a phoenix out of the ashes of their own nuclear legacy.

She would let nothing stop her.

She had spent her life and soul here in the Warren, all to serve the Motherland. And after so many sacrifices, so much bloodshed, what was left of Russia? Over the past decades, Savina had watched the Motherland devolve into this corrupt, pitiful shadow of itself. Here at the end of her life, she would offer it hope again. That would be her legacy, brought about by her own son.

She would burn away the corruption and create a new world.

“General-Major? Is there anything more?”

She shook her head and controlled her words. “I’ve seen enough.”

The engineer nodded and crossed to a steel lever beside his workstation. It looked like a giant handbrake on a car. He pinched the release on the lever, cranked the bar up, and shouldered it in the opposite direction. The iris swept closed at her toes and sealed the shaft. There was still work to be done. Miners, who had stopped to see the silo doors open, went back to work, crossing over the top of the iris, as they had for the past two years since dropping that first shaft.

Operation Saturn was ready to commence.

Savina turned away and headed toward the waiting train. She also had final preparations back at Chelyabinsk 88 to complete. She checked her watch. Nicolas should be heading to the ceremony at Chernobyl in another hour. Despite his rash actions of late, he did have everything under control. With or without him, systems were in place and would run their course. All was in order. Nothing could stop it from happening.

As she stepped into the train car and the doors sealed, she glanced back to the heart of Operation Saturn. She tried to picture the millions that would die, but they were an abstraction, a number too large to contemplate beyond cold statistics. She faced forward as the train lurched into motion and headed back toward the Warren at Chelyabinsk 88. The teachers and researchers should be readying for their own evacuation. Computers were being wiped, records incinerated. The children were also being prepared—but not for evacuation. They would be taking one last train ride themselves.

All of them, except the ten who would be with her.

Savina pictured the faces of the other children. Sixty-four, including the infants. It was a number too small to view as only an abstraction. She knew a majority of the children by name. As the train trundled toward the Warren in the dark, Savina leaned a hand against the wall. Her knees trembled, and a wave of emotion swept through her. She did not fight it. It welled up out of her chest and choked her throat. A few hot tears streamed down her cheeks. In this private moment, she let her emotions run their course. She recognized her humanity and allowed herself a moment to grieve.

But only this moment.

By the time the train began slowing, she wiped her face and patted her cheeks. She took several deep breaths. There was no turning back.

Necessity was a cruel master.

And she would have to be just as cruel.

9:32 A.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Nicolas climbed into the limousine with Elena. A caravan of vehicles flowed out from the staging area in front of the Polissia Hotel. Politicians and officials were being shuttled or had private escorts. Since midnight, news crews from around the world had been setting up cameras and prepping vans that sported towering satellite antennas. Since first light, celebrities and dignitaries had been drifting over there, for interviews, for tours, for a moment in the limelight.

In the next hours, the eyes of the world would be upon the sealing of Chernobyl, a final act to end the old nuclear era and launch a major new summit to address the issue far into the future.

But Nicolas had his own issue at the moment.

As soon as the limousine door clicked shut, Nicolas had his first moment of privacy with Elena. He turned to her. “I’m sorry. I should have told you about Sasha and Pyotr.”

Elena shook her head very slightly, furious. She had not spoken a word to him since his interrogation of the Americans. Even now, she shifted to stare out the window of the limousine. Sasha and Pyotr had always held a special place in her heart. It was more than the usual affection. She had a personal connection, too. It had been Elena’s older sister, Natasha, who had given birth to them, dying in labor.

“You know the policy at the Warren,” Nicolas pressed as the limousine set off down the road. “Birth records are sealed.”

It had been a guideline from the start at the Warren. Familial lines for the most part were kept secret. Children knew their immediate brothers and sisters, to discourage inappropriate fraternization, but that was all. Breeding was dictated and controlled by the geneticists.

But Nicolas had been no ordinary offspring. As the son of the founder, an entire history had been fabricated for him, starting in Yekaterinburg, where his mother had given birth to him at a local hospital, using the false surname Solokov. His mother would have used the name Romanov, but that might have been too obvious. From the very start, he had been groomed for a special destiny. As such, he was granted certain privileges.

“I checked the fertilization clinic’s records one day,” he said. “I was curious if I had any children. It was then that I discovered that Sasha and Pyotr were my own. But I was forbidden from saying anything.”

He reached a hand to her knee, but his palm hovered, fearful of touching her. “In fact, it was because of the production of such talented children that my mother encouraged our union. In an attempt to repeat such a fortunate genetic cross.”

Elena would not turn his way. A part of him enjoyed her coldness, this control. He wanted to touch her, but she had not yet given him permission.

“Please, milaya moya, forgive me.”

She ignored him.

Sighing, he stared ahead.

Through the privacy glass, Nicolas spotted the rise of Chernobyl. A tall ventilation tower, ringed by maintenance scaffolding, climbed high into the sky. It rose from a jumble of cement buildings. Crammed against one side stood a massive blocky crypt of black steel and concrete. It looked damp, as if sweating. It was not a mystery why the structure was called the Sarcophagus. It looked like a black tomb, and at its heart lay the ruins of reactor number four.

Nicolas had seen pictures of the inside, a blasted landscape of scorched cement and twisted steel. In one room, there was a clock, charred and half melted, that forever marked the time of the explosion. Within the Sarcophagus, over two hundred tons of uranium and plutonium remained buried within the ruins, most of it in the form of solidified lava, formed from the radioactive fusion of molten fuel, concrete, and two thousand tons of combustibles. Pieces of the exploded core could be found everywhere, some embedded in the outer walls. In the lowest levels of the facility, seeping rainwater and fuel dust collected into a radioactive soup.

Was it any wonder that a new solution was necessary?

Off to the left was that answer.

It went by many names: the Shelter, the Arc of Life, the New Sarcophagus. The hanger-shaped arch rose thirty-seven stories into the air. Weighing over twenty thousand tons, it stretched over a quarter kilometer wide and half again as long. It was so cavernous inside that engineers feared it might form clouds and actually rain within the structure. On the underside of the arch, robotic trolley cranes waited to dismantle the old Sarcophagus piece by piece, operated by technicians safely outside the Shelter.

But things were already on the move.

The entire arch rested on greased steel tracks and was even now being slowly hauled along the rails, pulled by a pair of massive hydraulic jacks. It was the largest movable structure ever built by man. And by eleven o’clock this morning, the Shelter would be pulled over the old Sarcophagus and sealed up against the neighboring concrete building, totally covering the old crypt, and thus closing forever an ugly bit of Russian history and heralding a new start.

It was fitting that such an event would mark the beginning of the summit to come. A summit that would unfortunately never take place.

The limousine headed toward the stands that lined the south side of the old Sarcophagus. The seats were already filling with the invited VIPs. Speeches had begun on the stage that fronted the stadium seating, leading up to the official joint U.S-Russian statements, picked to coincide with the final seal of Chernobyl. The entire series of events was timed to the clockwork pull of the giant arch.

As was Nicolas’s plan.

A moment of fear flickered through him. Not unlike when he stood on the news podium as an assassin lined up for a fatal shot. Only the risk this morning was a thousandfold worse.

Fingers closed around his hand as it rested on the seat. He turned and found Elena’s hand upon his. She stared out the window, still angry, letting him know this was not over. Her fingernails curled and pressed hard into his palm, a promise that he would be punished later.

He leaned back as she dug deeper.

The pain helped focus him.

Ahead, the arch closed slowly upon Chernobyl.

He knew what was to come.

And he certainly deserved to be punished.

10:04 A.M.

Gray paced the cell when he heard something thud heavily against the door. Kowalski scrambled up, and Luca straightened from where he was leaning against the wall.

“What the hell now?” Kowalski muttered.

The scrape of a metal bar sounded, and the door pulled open.

A figure stepped over the booted legs of a guard on the floor.

“Hurry,” the man said and waved his ivory-handled cane. “We have to get out of here.”

Gray stared in disbelief.

It was Dr. Hayden Masterson.

Confused, Gray remained frozen in place, caught between wanting to slug the man and shake his hand.

Masterson read his shocked expression. “Commander, I work for MI6.”

“British intelligence?”

He nodded with an exasperated sigh. “Explanations will have to wait. We have to go. Now.”

Masterson headed down the hall, dragging them in tow. Gray stopped long enough to collect the guard’s sidearm, a Russian pistol called a Grach or Rook. The man had been knocked out, his nose broken. It seemed Masterson’s cane was more than show.

Gray caught up to Masterson. Suspicion rang in his voice. “You? You’re an operative with MI6?”

Kowalski mumbled behind him, “Not exactly James Bond, is he?”

Masterson continued to hobble along, but he glanced over to Gray. “Retired MI6 actually.” He shrugged. “If you call this retirement.”

Gray remained guarded, but he could think of no upside for this man freeing them from the cell.

Masterson continued in a wheezing rush. “I was recruited after I graduated from Oxford and stationed in India during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. I retired ten years ago, then stumbled into this mess when someone offered me good money to spy on Archibald. It didn’t take long to learn the Russians were behind it. So I contacted MI6 and let them know. It was designated low priority. No one considered Archibald’s work a threat to global security. To tell the truth, I didn’t either. Not until he was kidnapped and ended up dead in D.C. I tried to light a fire under MI6, but who listens to an old man these days? I couldn’t wait. Call it old instinct. I knew something bloody large was afoot. So I’m afraid, after losing Archibald, I had to use all of you to force an introduction.”

“Use us,” Kowalski said. “They killed Abe.”

Masterson winced. “I tried to stop them, but our friend was too quick with that whip-sword of his.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe this is a younger man’s game after all.”

“But wait!” Kowalski stumbled with a sudden realization. “You were going to shoot me!”

Gray dismissed his concern. “Masterson was putting on an act.”

A nod. “I had to be convincing.”

“You damn well convinced me!”

“And it was lucky I was so successful.” Masterson turned to Gray. “The bloody bastard is planning on taking out half the world’s leaders today.”

“What?”

Masterson drew them to a stairwell next to the old guard station and lowered his voice. “More men downstairs. They’ve had me holed up here. As much a prisoner as any of you. I’m off to free Elizabeth and Dr. Rosauro.” He waved down the hall past the guard station. “If I could borrow that shapely companion of yours, we’ll try to reach a phone and start an evacuation.”

“Take Luca, too,” Gray said. He wanted the civilians as much out of harm’s way as possible. Plus the Gypsy leader’s presence would go a long way to convincing Rosauro that Masterson was aboveboard.

Luca nodded his agreement.

“Fine. I can use his help,” Masterson said. He pulled a Russian Army walkie-talkie from his jacket and passed it to Gray, so they could communicate. “But in the meantime—”

Gray cut him off. “—I have to stop Senator Solokov.”

Masterson nodded. “You’ve got less than an hour. I don’t know what he’s planning, something to do with the ceremony over at Chernobyl.”

“What ceremony?”

Masterson pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to Gray. “They’re enclosing the old Sarcophagus at Chernobyl,” he said and nodded to the sheet. “Under a large steel hangar.”

As Gray studied the sheet, Masterson listed the dignitaries and leaders who would be in attendance at the event and quickly summarized the morning’s ceremonies. “As to Nicolas’s specific plans, all I could get was the name. Operation Uranus.”

“Operation Your Anus?” Kowalski said. “That sounds painful.”

Gray ignored him and headed for the stairs. “Where’s Solokov now?”

“Headed to Chernobyl.”

As Gray descended with Kowalski, he pictured the towering ventilation shaft. Whatever the bastard was planning, it must involve the reactor. But the name for the offensive—Operation Uranus—why pick that name? While training for the Army Rangers, Gray had learned of its historical context from his strategic studies classes. Operation Uranus was a Russian offense during World War II that ended the bloodiest battle in human history, the Battle of Stalingrad.

So why that name?

Something troubled Gray, something nagging, but the tension locked it away. Ahead, two guards manned the exit to the jailhouse. They had their backs to Gray.

He lifted his stolen Rook pistol.

Worries would have to wait.

Chapter 17

September 7, 10:07 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

As the sun shone on a crisp morning, Monk crunched along the gravel road that wound through the ghost town. Weeds and bushes grew waist high, making it feel as if they were wading through green water. Konstantin kept abreast of him, while Pyotr and Kiska trailed. Marta followed, too, but she was drowned away in the green sea, parting the grasses as she maneuvered through them.

“There’s little coal in the mountains here,” Konstantin lectured around a bone-cracking yawn. “All the mining in the region is for metal or metallic ores.”

Monk knew the kid was wired between exhaustion and terror. The tall boy spoke quietly to keep himself awake and to combat anxiety.

“Cobalt, nickel, tungsten, vanadium, bauxite, platinum…”

Monk let him prattle as he kept a watch on the town to either side. The buildings looked hastily constructed, made of clapboard with elevated plank sidewalks that bordered the road. They passed a one-room schoolhouse with intact windows and still lined with wooden desks inside. A couple of old trucks, Soviet-era green, sat rusted into the roadbed. The only brick building had Cyrillic lettering along the facade. Monk could not read it, but it appeared from the shelves inside to be a general store and post office. Next to it stood a saloon with dusty bottles still on the shelves.

It was as if one day the townspeople had simply stepped out of their respective doors and left without ever looking back.

Monk did not have to guess why. From this higher vantage point, Lake Karachay spread wide, rimmed by muddy banks and reflecting the sunlight in a sparkling lie that hid its toxic heart. Monk glanced to the badge hanging from his pack. The red hue had grown to a darker crimson. He checked it every few minutes.

Konstantin noted his attention. “We must stay no longer than another hour. It is very dangerous here. We must get underground soon.”

Monk nodded and stared up. The entrance to the mine lay another mile above them. He could make out the steel outbuildings and skeletal derricks that framed a larger structure hugging against the mountain. Two large metal wheels flanked the central building, tailing wheels, used to dredge up debris from the diggings below. The gravel underfoot probably came from that mine.

Monk set a faster pace.

Ahead, the only other substantial structure appeared as the road swung a hard switchback to climb another level up the mountainside. The mill rose three stories high, the tallest building here. It was built of logs with a tin roof. Its wooden waterwheel, green with moss and lichen, had broken off its moorings and lay toppled across the creek. An old flood must have torn it free.

As they headed toward it, Kiska cried out.

Monk swung around and saw Pyotr standing stock still, as upright as a pole, his eyes huge, bright with terror.

Monk’s chest clenched.

No…not here.

Marta loped a circle around the boy, also sensing his distress. Like Monk, she didn’t know where the danger lay or from where it might strike—but they both knew what the boy sensed.

Monk flashed back to the tiger charging at him, one ear gnarled.

Zakhar.

The beast shouldn’t have been able to track them, not across all that open water. But tigers were strong swimmers. The hunter must have forded the swamp and waited to ambush its prey here. Monk did not doubt such cunning from Zakhar.

Monk searched the tall grasses, the jumble of buildings. The creature could be hiding anywhere. The hairs along Monk’s arms prickled, almost sensing the feral eyes upon him. They were out in the open, exposed. And without a single weapon. They’d lost their only dagger when Marta had attacked Arkady.

“Back,” Monk said, pointing to the brick building. “Move slowly. Toward the store.”

Despite all the windows, it would make the stoutest stronghold. They might find something they could use for defense among its shelves. Monk pulled Pyotr to his side. The boy quaked under him. As a tight group, they retreated along the path they’d forged through the grass.

Monk kept an eye behind him, mostly because Pyotr did the same. He trusted the boy’s intuition. Where the road curved toward the mining station, the mill house towered across the creek. Monk knew tigers often sought the highest ground: a tall boulder, a lofty tree branch, a mountain ledge, someplace where they could leap upon their prey.

As if sensing it had been discovered, a shadowy striped shape slid like a flow of oil from one of the upper-story windows near the back of the mill. If Monk hadn’t been concentrating, he would’ve missed it. The tiger vanished into the tall grasses.

“Run,” he urged Konstantin and Kiska.

Monk pulled Pyotr up into his arms with one tug.

The two children ahead of him shot forward, stung by terror and fueled by adrenaline. Monk followed, with Marta racing beside him.

Behind Monk, a heavy crack of board sounded as something heavy bounded off the waterwheel and across the creek. The general store’s door was open, only thirty yards away. It would be close. He prayed for a walk-in freezer, somewhere they could barricade.

The crack of a rifle split through his terror.

Gravel exploded with a bright spark at his toes.

Monk dove to the side, rolling through the high grass, cradling and cushioning Pyotr with his own body. He kept rolling until he ended up behind one of the rusted hulks of an old truck.

The sniper had shot from the lower half of the street.

It had to be one of the Russian soldiers.

Turning, Monk spotted Konstantin and Kiska leaping like frightened deer across the planked sidewalk and through the open door of the store. Marta followed them with one bound. One of the windows shattered as a rifle shot echoed. But the trio had made it inside safely.

Monk sheltered behind the truck and hunkered down. He could not reach the store without crossing open ground.

He glanced up the street.

There was no sign of the tiger. Not a blade of grass moved. No rasp of gravel under heavy paw. The sudden shot must have dropped Zakhar low, startling the cat as much as them. It lay hidden out there.

Monk crouched, trapped between the tiger and a sniper. But that was not the only danger. Another hazard smothered over them all. Beyond the town’s edge, Lake Karachay shone brightly, radiating outward with its toxic pall. Even standing still here was death.

12:30 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

As an alarm klaxon continued to sound, Yuri stood alongside Sasha’s bed, shielding her with his body from McBride. The child had snugged into her sheets, hands over her ears, hypersensitive to the bells and shouts. Across the bed, Kat Bryant went to Sasha, consoling her with a palm atop her head. Behind the woman stood the pathologist Malcolm Jennings and a guard.

Yuri faced McBride. The man crouched a few steps away, his back to the corner of the room, his hand twisted in the blond braid of his hostage, Dr. Lisa Cummings. He held his cell phone pistol against her neck.

They were at an impasse.

And Mapplethorpe was already pounding his way down here with commandos. Yuri’s blood burned with the thought of the bastard getting his oily hands on Sasha. He could not let that happen.

Yuri shifted to the stainless-steel instrument table and picked up a syringe from among the vials of drugs used to treat Sasha.

“Yuri!” McBride snapped at him with warning.

He answered in Russian, knowing McBride understood. “I will not let you have Sasha,” he said and stabbed the needle into her intravenous line.

As he pushed the plunger, he saw McBride shift his gun away from his hostage and toward him. The syringe just contained saline, a ruse. Yuri whipped around and flew straight at the man. At the same time, Lisa stamped her heel on the man’s instep and smashed her head back into his face.

The pistol fired, explosive in the small space.

Struck in the shoulder, Yuri spun half a step. He barely noted the pain. He crashed into McBride, knocking Lisa out of his grip. Yuri slashed at McBride’s throat and jammed the second syringe he had palmed off the instrument table, popping into the jugular. The syringe contained a non-diluted concentration of Sasha’s medications. At full strength, it was a toxic pharmacology of chemotherapeutics, epinephrine, and steroids.

Tangled together, McBride emptied his clip into Yuri’s stomach. Muffled by his body, it sounded like loud claps and felt as if someone were punching him in the gut. Still, Yuri slammed the plunger home, sending the poisonous slurry straight for the heart.

McBride screamed.

Yuri fell with the man to the floor. He knew what McBride was feeling: flames shooting through his veins, pressure detonating in his head, heart squeezing with agony. Hands pulled Yuri off McBride and rolled him to the floor. He spotted Kat draped over Sasha, protecting her from the gunfire, keeping the child’s head turned away.

At his side, McBride writhed up into a convulsive seizure, spittle flying, turning bloody as he bit through his tongue. The body would live, but not his mind. The drugs would burn through his brain, leaving him a hollowed husk.

Lisa leaned over Yuri. “Help me!”

More hands appeared, applying pressure to his belly. Blood spread across the floor. Kat joined him, cradling his head. He coughed. More blood. He reached a hand, knowing she would help.

“Sasha…,” he gasped out.

“We’ll protect her,” Kat said.

He shook his head. He knew this already, did not doubt her heart. “More…more rebyonka.”

He had trouble focusing—mind and vision. The world darkened, and the pain sank into coldness.

He tried to speak, to tell her where. “Chela…insk…” His hand scrabbled to the floor, drew two numbers in his own blood: 88.

Her hand closed over his. “Hold on, Yuri.”

He wished he could, for Sasha, for all of them.

Darkness clouded over; voices drifted away down a long tunnel. He offered the only thing he could with his last breath.

Hope.

He clenched Kat’s hand and forced out one final message.

“He’s alive…”

Stunned, Kat sat with Yuri’s head in her lap. Had she heard him correctly? She stared down into his open eyes, now lifeless and glassy. He had been frantic at the end, as if seeking some last penance, even slipping into Russian. Fluent in the language from her former days with Naval Intelligence, Kat had understood some of it,

More rebyonka.

More children.

Like Sasha.

She stared at the girl in the bed, now guarded by Malcolm.

Yuri had babbled after that, tried to write something, but it was garbled nonsense. But what about what he’d said at the very end?

Kat turned to Lisa.

Her friend knelt in a pool of the man’s blood. “He saved my life,” she mumbled and placed a hand on Yuri’s chest. Busy with her ministrations, Lisa had not heard his last words.

Beyond Lisa, McBride’s body had stopped convulsing. His eyes were open, staring, just as lifeless and glassy, but his chest rose and fell.

Kat sat, unable to stand, her gaze focusing back to Sasha, to the pile of drawings.

Yuri’s words filled her world.

He’s alive.

His fingers had clamped onto her hand.

A message for her alone.

She knew whom he meant, but that was impossible.

Still, his last words loosened something inside her, stoked what had never fully gone cold. Her breathing grew heavier. With each breath, the fire grew stronger inside her, burning away doubt, blazing light into the dark places in her heart. A part of her dreaded to let go of that darkness; there was security in the shadows. But she refused to staunch these new flames.

Instead, the fire propelled her to her feet.

She grabbed the guard’s abandoned gun from the floor. Straightening, she spoke in a rush to the entire room. “It’s not secure here. We’ll strike for an exit…if not, we’ll find someplace we can fortify.”

As Lisa unhooked the girl’s I.V. line, Kat spotted the coloring book, still open on the bedside table, scribbled in green crayon, a man on a raft.

Impossible, but Kat knew it to be true.

Monk…

He’s alive.

10:20 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

The American should be dead.

Borsakov cursed his missed shot. He lay flat in the shadow of a mining shack. The rifle stretched out in front of him, his cheek resting against the stock of his weapon.

He had not expected the sudden bolt of his targets—straight back toward him. It had required repositioning and firing before being fully set. Plus he suspected his sights were incrementally out of alignment after the abuse in the swamp. He had not been able to test-fire the weapon and calibrate its sights. The shots would have warned the targets of his approach.

Still, he had them all pinned down.

Two children and the chimpanzee hid in the brick building. The American and the boy behind the truck. Borsakov slid backward, keeping to the grasses. All he had to do was cross the street, and he’d have the American within his sight line again.

This time he would not miss.

He moved stealthily and low across the road, keeping to shadows for as long as possible. He reached the far side and crouched behind an overturned barrel. He leaned out, ready with his rifle.

Down the street, he had a clear view behind the truck now.

Borsakov’s fingers clenched on his rifle in fury and confusion.

No one was there.

The American and the boy had vanished.

Pyotr huddled inside the truck, curled in the footwell. Monk had lifted him and shoved him through the half-open window, then disappeared between the two buildings behind the truck. Before he left, he had motioned Pyotr to remain low and duck far into the space in front of the seat. Leaves and beetles shared his hiding place. He clutched his arms around his knees.

Somewhere in the dark places in his mind, where he feared to look, he remembered hiding like this: cramped, breathless, hunted. Another life. Not his. Stone had encased him then, rather than rusty steel.

Hovering between then and now, he felt the pinpricks of lights out in the darkness. Stars in the night sky. If he stared long enough, they would grow brighter, falling toward him. But the night sky had always scared him. So he shied away, back to the moment.

As he did so, a hunger filled him. But like the memory before, this appetite did not belong to him. Close by, a large heart thundered, swallowing Pyotr’s feeble beat. Strange odors swelled through his senses: wet grass, the whispers of hot blood in the air, the feel of gravel underfoot. A breath drew heavily, much larger than his own small chest. The scent of the hunt fired through him.

Then another musk came with it.

A new scent.

Another hunter in their midsts.

But this scent carried more than pungent odor.

Memory of searing agony came with it.

Spine prickling, fury burned away hunger.

As Pyotr huddled tighter, that large heart stalked forward, padding toward him.

Monk fled along the rear of the roadside buildings and headed toward the lower half of the street. His back and chest burned, scratched and impaled by splinters from the narrow squeeze between the two clapboard shops. He had secured Pyotr in the truck, safe from the tiger for the moment—but not from the sniper. His first priority was to lure the soldier away from the children, to get him chasing after Monk into the mix of buildings below.

Survival and outwitting the soldier would have to follow that.

Monk ran low. He stuck close to the buildings and avoided piles of dry leaves and foundation gravel. He moved silently until he reached where the lower switchback cut downward. Rounding the last building, he edged back to the main street. Had he gone far enough?

Holding his breath, he peeked around the corner and scanned up the street. He spotted the brickwork of the general store, the rusted truck, and the roadway of weeds and high grass. Nothing moved. A breeze flowed down the mountain and feathered the tips of the grass blades.

But there was no sign of the sniper.

He had to be out there, possibly sneaking up on the children. Monk could not risk a hostage situation if the sniper grabbed one of the kids. Monk bunched his legs under him. He had to dash across the street and down to the lower level of the ramshackle town. The crunch of gravel would make plenty of noise.

But he had to be convincing to draw off the soldier.

Taking a deep breath, Monk burst out of hiding and pounded across the gravel. “Run!” he yelled and waved an arm to imaginary children. “Just keep running!”

Let the sniper think that all the children were with—

—crack—

Fire impaled Monk’s thigh. His left leg went out from under him.

He landed hard, his arms out to protect him. Gravel tore skin from his palm and stumped wrist. He let momentum roll him farther down the street. A second rifle blast ripped through the grass over his head with a sharp whistle.

Monk dropped flat, but he spied through the grass and saw the soldier rise. He had been hiding farther up the street, about halfway toward the brick store. Rifle on his shoulder, he sidled straight at Monk.

The soldier had anticipated his adversary circling to the rear. He had hidden in wait, ready to ambush.

But the soldier wasn’t the only one hunting.

Fifty yards up the street, a parted V of grass swept straight toward the soldier, like a torpedo through water.

Borsakov kept his face stoic, but a dark satisfaction rang through him. He had the man down, immobile, defenseless. He would end this here, make the American pay for the deaths of his comrades on the boat, make him suffer: a bullet through the kneecap, perhaps another through his shoulder.

As Borsakov took another step, a shift of gravel sounded behind him, a whisper of grass blades, rushing like the wind.

Not the wind.

He knew.

Borsakov twisted around. He started firing before he’d even secured his stance. He squeezed hard, rifle chugging with automatic fire in a wide swath. A feral scream of rage ripped through the blasts as Zakhar burst out of the grass and leaped straight at him: legs wide, black claws bared, muzzle curled back from curved yellow fangs.

Borsakov fired and fired. Blood burst in sprays from the striped fur—but he knew there was no stopping the monster.

It was fury and pain, revenge and hunger, lust and determination.

In the face of such horror, a scream burst from Borsakov’s throat, guttural and raw, a primal cry of terror.

Then the tiger landed and pounded him to the ground.

Monk shifted higher, watching the tiger savage the soldier’s body. It reminded him of the bear ripping into the massive wolves yesterday. Monk heard the moist crack of bone, and the man’s scream cut off. The soldier’s body was shaken like a rag doll, gripped by the neck, blood fountaining.

Monk had seen enough and bounded straight at the tiger, his left leg on fire, dripping with blood.

The soldier’s weapon had been flung from his body as he was smashed under the eight hundred pounds of feral muscle and claw. The rifle landed halfway between the tiger and Monk. They would not survive this monster without it.

A growl spat toward him.

Zakhar’s eyes fixed on Monk. In that black regard, Monk knew the cat recognized him, the murderer of his brother. The tiger crouched atop the broken Russian’s body, muscles rippling, hackles high, fur sticking straight out in all directions. Blood flowed across the tiger’s chest and flanks, blurring stripes. The cat survived on pure fury.

Reaching the weapon, Monk slid on his knees and scooped up the rifle. One-handed, Monk struggled with the weapon, tangling with its strap and fumbling to bring it up and find the trigger.

He would never make it in time.

Zakhar’s rear legs bunched for the kill—

—when a second feline scream echoed down the street. It was not as loud, but it rang out in a perfect yowl of fury and grief. Monk recognized it, having heard it just hours ago.

The death cry of Arkady, brother of Zakhar.

Recognizing it, too, Zakhar leaped up, twisted in midair, and landed in a crouch, tail high. A hiss flowed from the giant cat, less fury, more wary confusion.

Monk lifted the rifle and aimed for the metal cap screwed over the back of the skull. He drew a fix just below it.

Steps away, Zakhar’s feral hiss escalated into a whine of pain, of grief, looking for his lost brother.

Firming his stance, Monk squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked with a sharp retort.

The tiger jerked, then dropped flat into the grass.

Monk sank to his side, leaning on his stump. He shouldered the rifle. He knew his aim had been true, a merciful kill shot through the base of the skull. He checked his own wound. The soldier’s bullet had ripped a gash in his thigh, but it had passed clean through.

He’d live.

Monk took several breaths, then forced himself to rise.

From down the street, Konstantin and Kiska appeared. Monk knew he owed his life to little Kiska and her perfect pitch and mimicry. Heard once, she had emulated Arkady’s cry, amplified by the rolled sheet of tin Konstantin now tossed aside into the grass.

Marta bounded out of the store and straight for the truck.

They would collect Pyotr and move on. Limping, Monk studied the mine complex above the town. They still had a hard climb, but Monk had something to do here first. He hobbled over to Zakhar and placed a hand on the tiger’s bloody shoulder, wishing the beast the peace it had never known during its life here.

“Go on now, big fella…go join your brother.”

12:43 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter raced down the empty hallway toward the stairs. Alarms rang, accompanied by the Protocol Alpha siren. Evacuation of the facility was almost complete. The emergency exits emptied into a neighboring underground parking garage. Painter did not doubt that Mapplethorpe had men guarding those exits, making sure the child didn’t escape. But at least the base personnel should be out of the underground cement bunker.

All except those caught during the initial attack.

After setting the fail-safe, Painter had stopped first at the communication nest of central command and had tapped into the video feed. He’d found that outside communication had been cut off, indicating someone had the schematics to the command structure, but they’d left internal lines open. From the top floor’s cameras, he watched Mapplethorpe’s commandos gather a dozen hostages, their wrists secured behind their backs with plastic ties.

It could’ve been worse. At this late hour, Sigma had been lightly staffed. Satisfied, Painter had prepared what he’d needed, and once done, he turned his attention to the danger closest to his heart. He shoved open the door to the stairwell and almost knocked Kat Bryant on her rear end.

She carried Sasha in her arms.

He struggled to comprehend.

Beyond Kat, he spotted Malcolm Jennings and a security guard.

“What? How?” he stammered out.

Lisa shoved past Malcolm and hurried up to him. She was covered in blood. His heart hammered, but she seemed uninjured. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a fast hug. He felt the shudder of her relief, matched by his own—then they parted, professional again.

“What happened?” he asked.

Kat related in terse, dispassionate thumbnails, finishing with, “We’re attempting to evacuate.”

“You’ll never make it out with Sasha,” he said. “All the exits are surely covered.”

“Then what do we do?” Lisa asked.

Painter checked his watch. “Well, by escaping on your own, you’ve already made my life easier.” He pointed back down. “Take Sasha to the gym locker room. Secure her in there. All of you.”

“What about you?” Kat asked.

He kissed Lisa on the cheek, turned toward the door, and headed out. “I’ve got one last thing to do—then I’ll join you.”

“Be careful,” Lisa said.

Kat called back to him. “Director! Monk’s still alive!”

Painter halted, glanced behind him, but the stairwell door slammed shut. What? He had no time to inquire what she had meant. It would have to wait. He sprinted back down the hall and returned to where he had started, back to the communication nest. Slowing, he tested the air. A sweetness permeated the space, as it should all of central command.

It was the first stage of the fail-safe program: feeding a gaseous accelerant into the air. It took a minimum of fifteen minutes to reach critical levels. And while it was safe to breathe for at least a couple of hours, they didn’t have that long. In another ten minutes, the fail-safe would ignite sparks throughout the base and trigger a firestorm across all levels of central command. The flash fire would last only a few seconds, fed by the accelerant in the air, searing every surface within the concrete bunker. Then sprinklers would kick in, dousing the flames immediately.

Inside the communication nest, Painter checked the row of monitors, receiving video feed from cameras on every level.

He stalked along them until he found the one he was looking for. It showed Mapplethorpe standing beside Sean McKnight. He held a pistol to Sean’s back. Behind them, commandos began disappearing down an open stairwell door.

Painter tapped on the audio from the camera.

“—madness,” Sean said. “You can’t circumvent channels like this. Do you think you can perform an unsanctioned assault upon another agency, then try to clean it up afterward?”

“I’ve done it before,” Mapplethorpe growled. “It’s all a matter of producing the results to match the offense.”

“In other words, the ends justify the means,” Sean scoffed. “You’ll never get away with it. Two people are dead.”

“Is that all? Like I said, I’ve done this many times before. Abroad and here.”

Painter cut into the conversation. He spoke into a microphone that broadcast through speakers on that floor. “Mapplethorpe!”

The man jolted, but he kept his pistol steady. He searched around, then found the camera on the wall. He regained his composure, his lips settling into a sneer of derision. “Ah, Director, so you haven’t evacuated with the rest of your people. Very good. Then let us end this quickly. Bring up the girl, and no one else needs to get hurt.”

Painter spoke into the microphone. “We’ve already taken out your man, Mapplethorpe, and hidden the girl where you won’t find her.”

“Is that so?” Mapplethorpe sniffed a bit at the air. “I see you’ve activated Sigma’s fail-safe program.”

Painter felt a chill. The man had obtained more than just their base schematics; he’d tapped deep into their protocols. Sean had warned him about Mapplethorpe. The bastard had his fingers everywhere, a black spider dancing in the intelligence web. His oily and bland demeanor hid a much more dangerous core.

“And I believe you’ve set the timer for zero one hundred,” Mapplethorpe said, confirming the depths of his intel. “We’ve been unable to decrypt the code to stop it, but something tells me we won’t have to. Not with my holding twenty hostages above. Twenty of your men and women. With families and lives beyond these walls. I don’t think you’ve got the brass balls to let them die, to be slain by your own hand. Whereas I—”

Mapplethorpe lifted his gun to the back of Sean’s head.

“—have no such qualms.”

The man fired. The pistol blast overloaded the speakers, turning into a digital pop and squawk. Sean fell to his knees, then to the floor.

Painter’s chest tightened, unable to take a breath. Disbelief rang through him. A part of him expected Sean to stand back up, to shake off the attack. But just as quickly, a flame as hot as the coming firestorm burned through Painter. Stunned at the man’s brutality and callousness, Painter could form no words.

Unlike his adversary.

Mapplethorpe’s voice returned. “We’re coming for that girl, Director. And no one is going to stop us.”

Chapter 18

September 7, 10:38 A.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Gray secured the black belt over the Russian field jacket, camouflaged in forest green. He stamped his feet more securely into the boots. Kowalski tossed him a furred cap. The stolen uniform fit decently, but his partner’s outfit looked ready to burst at the seams. The two Russian soldiers, stripped to their underclothes, had been posted at the front of the jailhouse. Caught by surprise, it had not been hard to knock them out and secure the uniforms.

“Let’s go,” Gray said and headed to a motorcycle.

“Shotgun,” Kowalski called out.

Gray glanced over, realizing the man was not talking about a weapon. They both had AN-94 Russian assault rifles.

Kowalski eyed the sidecar to the IMZ-Ural motorcycle. “Always wanted to ride in one of these,” he said and climbed into the open car.

Gray shifted the rifle over a shoulder and hiked a leg over the seat.

Moments later, engine growling, they shot through the old prison gates and out into the weed-strewn streets of Pripyat. Gray checked his wristwatch.

Twenty minutes.

Leaning lower, he throttled up, goosed the gas, and sped through the faded, rusted city. The asphalt was broken, and shattered glass threatened the tires. Around every corner, they met unexpected obstacles: abandoned rusted skeletons of automobiles, moss-covered old furniture, and even a strangely surreal stack of band instruments.

Despite the hazards, Gray raced at breakneck speeds, taking corners hard enough to lift the sidecar off its tire. Kowalski whooped a bit at these turns. They passed the occasional soldier patrolling the streets, who lifted a rifle or arm in greeting as they raced past; at other times, Gray spotted a flash of a haunted face peering through a broken window, one of the stray scavengers of the city.

Reaching the outskirts of Pripyat, Gray sped toward the horizon as a trio of deer sprang away from the roar of the cycle. He aimed for the towering ventilation stack of the reactor. Even over the roar of the cycle, he heard snatches of amplified voices rolling out from the grandstands. According to Masterson, Senator Nicolas Solokov was planning some attack on those gathered here to observe the sealing of the Chernobyl reactor.

But what was the man’s plan?

What was Operation Uranus?

As Gray raced down a freshly paved asphalt road, he studied the growing hulk of the Chernobyl complex ahead. His eyes were drawn to what looked like a gargantuan Quonset hut off to one side. The arched steel hangar reflected the morning sunlight like a mirror.

And it was moving.

Like oil on water, the sunlight flowed over its curved exterior. It closed slowly upon the Chernobyl reactor. Most of the complex was gray concrete and whitewashed surfaces, but along one side, a hulking structure stuck out along one edge, blackened like a dead tooth. It marked the grave of reactor number four, a massive black Sarcophagus. The rolling hangar, open at one end, sought to swallow the structure under its high arch.

As they drew closer, Gray’s mind shuffled through possibilities. Archibald Polk had been exposed to a deadly level of radiation, possibly from here. Whatever Nicolas was planning had to involve the old reactor. Nothing else made sense.

Masterson had warned that security would be high near the grandstands, especially with the number of dignitaries in attendance. The stands stood a quarter mile from the reactor. Gray weighed which path to take: to head for the grandstands or the reactor. What if he was wrong about the reactor? Could there be a bomb somewhere among the stands?

As the bike shot across the open plain between Pripyat and Chernobyl, a broadcasted voice reached him, echoing and hollow, extolling the virtues of nuclear cooperation in the new world. There was no mistaking that voice. Gray had attended several events at the White House.

It was the president of the United States.

Gray factored this into his account. The Secret Service would surely have canvassed the site, swept it multiple times, set up a strict protocol. Additionally, the Secret Service would have agents on all sides of the reactor, again searching for any threat.

Gray studied the number of parked vehicles, the sea of satellite antennas. The entire grandstand area was cordoned off with fences, gates, and patrolling guards—on foot and in open jeeps. While his disguise worked at a distance, Gray doubted the ruse would get him through to the stands. He had no identification, no passes for the event.

As he weighed his options, speeding toward the immense site, he was awed by the sheer size of the project. The giant steel hangar slowly trundled along a pair of tracks, pulled by whale-size hydraulic jacks. It had already reached the dead reactor and had begun to close over it, arching high into the sky, its steel now nearly blinding with sunlight, so tall that the Statue of Liberty could stand on her own shoulders and still not reach the roof of the arched hangar.

Even Kowalski whistled his appreciation at the dimensions of the rolling structure. He finally leaned over and called out, “What’s the plan when we—?”

Gray lifted an arm, silencing him. A new voice had cut into the president’s speech. Like the president, this speaker was also familiar. He spoke Russian, then repeated his words in English, playing for the international audience.

Senator Nicolas Solokov’s voice boomed toward Gray. “I protest this travesty!” he bellowed. “Here we all are, congratulating ourselves for erasing a shameful piece of Russian history—for hiding it, as though it never happened, sweeping it under a steel rug. But what about those killed during the explosion, what about the hundreds of thousands doomed to die of cancers and leukemia, what of the thousands of babies born into deformity, pain, and mental debilitation? Who will speak for them?”

Gray was now close enough to see the stage that rose before the amphitheater seating. Figures were too small to make out, but giant video screens flanked the stage. One displayed the Russian president, the other the United States’s leader. Each president stood behind a podium. In the center of the stage, another figure stood amid chaos. Nicolas Solokov. Guards tried to haul the senator from the stage, while others protected him so he could speak. From all the milling confusion, Nicolas must have barged onto the stage to initiate this dramatic, televised protest.

Off to the side, men in black surrounded and shielded the president.

Whatever Nicolas had planned, it had begun. Gray leaned lower and gunned the engine. The motorcycle rocketed down the blacktop toward the stands.

The speaker squawked with electronic feedback, then Nicolas continued, shouting, “You all believe a handsome coffin like this marks an end to a blasted legacy, but it is all sham! The monster has already escaped its cage! No matter how large a lock or how strong the steel, you cannot put that monster back behind bars. The only real end to this legacy is to fundamentally change our attitudes, to set true and lasting policy. This ceremony is nothing more than a pale charade! All posture, no substance! We should be ashamed!”

Finally, the guards overwhelmed the senator’s supporters. Nicolas’s microphone was ripped from his hands. He was dragged bodily off the stage.

The Russian president began speaking in his native tongue, sounding both angry and apologetic. The U.S. president motioned the agents to disperse, not wanting to appear spooked by a showboating politician. Speeches slowly resumed.

Behind them, the arch continued to swallow the reactor.

Gray slowed his bike. He still had a choice to make: to head to the grandstands or the reactor. He considered Nicolas’s protest, his dramatic exit. It had all been artfully staged. The senator had plainly orchestrated a reason not to be at the event, to be taken away. But where? He would not leave that to chance. He would not risk being trapped in harm’s way. Whoever had dragged Nicolas from the stage must be in his employ, removing him to safety.

Beyond the gaggle of TV vans, Gray spotted a green army jeep hightailing it away from the media area. It was on a dirt road that paralleled the eight-foot-tall tracks of the massive archway. The rutted path headed away from the reactor and curved around the end of the tracks toward the rear side of the complex.

Gray spotted a suited figure in the backseat.

Nicolas.

Gray stared upward. The blinding steel structure now consumed half of the blackened hulk of the Sarcophagus. In another fifteen minutes, it would close completely over the crypt. The grandstands rested a quarter mile away from the reactor.

Gray had to make a choice.

He pictured Nicolas Solokov seated behind the desk in the guard shack during the interrogation. From the cut of his clothes to the patterns of his speech, the man was arrogant and self-assured, an ego matched only by a need to control. It radiated out of him.

Nicolas would want to watch what was to come.

So why was he heading behind the reactor?

Unless…

Gray swung the cycle off the blacktop and cut across the open fields. He headed straight for the end of the tracks, intending to intercept the vehicle as it rounded the bend in the road.

“Pierce!” Kowalski yelled. “Where are we going?”

“To save the president.”

“But the grandstand’s over that way!” Kowalski pointed an arm in the opposite direction.

Ignoring him, Gray bounced the cycle like a dirt bike across the rolling plain. Kowalski clutched tightly to the handrails. Gray gunned the engine and sped faster over the wild terrain. Mud and grass spattered behind him.

Ahead, the jeep raced alongside the four hundred yards of tracks. The vehicle was almost to the end. It would be close. Gray was still a football field away from the road.

And they’d been spotted.

An arm pointed toward their racing motorcycle. From the distance, Gray and Kowalski would appear to be Russian soldiers out for a joy ride. Confusion should reign for a moment in the jeep. That’s all they would have.

“Kowalski!”

“What?”

“Can you take out one of their rear tires as they make that curve?”

“Are you nuts?” he asked, his voice rattling with the bike.

“Hang on.”

Gray angled the bike into a dry sandy wash. Floods had swept the stretch fairly flat and smooth.

“Take your shot!” he yelled to Kowalski.

The large man already had his assault rifle up. Kowalski braced himself in the sidecar and brought the rifle to his shoulder. Gray heard him almost purr to his weapon. “C’mon, baby, make Daddy proud.”

Directly ahead, the jeep had reached the end of the tracks. It slowed to make the sharp turn but still took the corner hard. The driver fought to hold his vehicle to the road.

Gray heard a pop-pop from the sidecar. The Russian AN-94 fired double shots with every squeeze. At the same time, the jeep suddenly fishtailed as the driver lost control, his left rear tire smoking and tossing tread. It skidded sideways and slammed into a concrete pylon between the ends of the track.

Kowalski hooted his satisfaction and rubbed the side of his weapon. “Thank you, baby!”

Further self-congratulation was cut off as their cycle left the sandy wash and sailed back into coarser terrain. Spitting rocks, the cycle tore forward and reached the roadway in seconds.

The Russian jeep rested where it had crashed, one side crumpled, killing one of the soldiers in the front passenger seat. The other three occupants had piled out and retreated into a jumble of concrete barriers and low metal shacks that filled the space between the two track rails.

As Gray rounded into view, a roar of clapping erupted from the grandstands, along with cheering. The ceremony was reaching its climax. Covered by the noise, Gray barely heard the shots fired at them. The bike’s front tire blew, but Gray had anticipated an attack and aimed the cycle to the far side of the crumpled jeep. He slammed to a skidding stop behind it and rolled off the bike.

Kowalski tumbled out alongside him, and together they sheltered behind the crashed vehicle.

More rounds pinged off the front of the jeep.

Gray risked a fast peek around the rear bumper. He spotted a suited figure fleeing straight down the center of the tracks, which rose eight feet tall to either side, built of concrete and steel.

Nicolas Solokov was making a three-hundred-yard dash for the goal—in this case, the back end of the rolling archway. Gray tried to get a shot at him, but a bullet struck the bumper and whistled past his ear. He caught a glimpse of a smoking pistol, borne aloft by a raven-haired woman.

Elena.

Cursing, he dropped back.

Kowalski yelped, nicked in the shoulder.

The woman and a soldier held them pinned down.

Gray checked his watch.

Ten minutes.

Nicolas heard gunfire behind him and tried to race faster down the concourse between the raised tracks, but he’d twisted his left ankle after the crash. He had to trust Elena to keep him safe.

Two workers walked behind the backside of the steel Shelter. The massive structure rolled slowly along the rails, creeping a foot a minute on Teflon bearings, drawn by the massive hydraulic pulling jacks to either side.

A garage-door-size service hatch lay open ahead and offered access to the inside of the looming Shelter. It was the main reason Nicolas had fled from the others. He could not be sitting in front of that open door when Operation Uranus came to fruition.

He hobbled as fast as he could down the packed gravel roadway between the tracks. He had to get through that door, across the interior of the Shelter, and out the rear side before it closed.

Even he couldn’t stop Operation Uranus.

All he could do was get out of its way.

The plan had been formulated back in 1999, when the Shelter Implementation Plan had first started. The SIP’s goal was to stabilize and cover the old Sarcophagus. Engineers had been warning for years that the old crypt could collapse at any moment, exposing two hundred tons of radioactive uranium to the atmosphere. By that time, sections of the old Sarcophagus had already begun to crumble. Tiny holes and fissures had formed. So the first phase of the SIP sought to stabilize the Sarcophagus. That meant patching holes, shoring up structural wall pillars, and securing the rickety ventilation stack. This was all done while the Shelter’s massive arch was being constructed a safe four hundred yards away.

That initial structural work was completed in 1999—but it held some secrets. After the fall of the Soviet Union, corruption ran rampant. It had cost little to have four concussion charges secretly planted into the new wall pillars. They had remained dormant and inactive until yesterday. Last night, one of Nicolas’s men had sent a signal to the buried charges, setting the timers to match the closure of the Shelter over the Sarcophagus. Once set, there was no turning back.

At exactly two minutes before the Shelter sealed, the charges would blow. No one would even hear them. All that would be noted was a crash of concrete, followed by the collapse of an entire section of the Sarcophagus’s wall—the side that faced the grandstands. For an entire two minutes, the stands would be bathed in massive amounts of radiation before the Shelter finally sealed against the concrete wall behind the Sarcophagus. The exposure would not be enough to cause immediate fatalities. In fact, no one would feel anything. But during those two minutes, everyone in attendance would absorb a lethal dose of radiation.

They would all be dead within a matter of weeks.

In attendance were the Russian prime minister and president, alongside the leaders from across the Americas and the European Union. If successful, Nicolas’s mission would throw the major world governments into disarray, so that when the radiological bloom spread globally from his mother’s operation at Chelyabinsk 88, the world would need a strong voice, someone who had spent his career warning of just such a catastrophe.

They would turn to the only survivor of Operation Uranus.

And over the coming months—guided by the secret cabal of savants—Nicolas would demonstrate a remarkable prescience, intuitive knowledge, and brilliant foresight.

Out of the fire to come, Nicolas would quickly rise to power in Russia, and from there, stretch his influence globally. The Russian Empire would rise from these radioactive ashes to guide the world in a new direction.

It was such a thought that fueled him now.

He limped up to the two men following the back end of the Shelter. He pulled the pistol from his pocket. Two head shots. Almost point-blank. They dropped like leaden sacks to the gravel. There could be no witnesses.

Nicolas hurried through the open service hatch that pierced the back wall of the hangar. It took a dozen steps to cross through the hatch. The Shelter’s steel walls were twelve meters thick.

Once through, Nicolas entered the heart of the Shelter.

Despite his desperation, he gaped at the sheer wonder of the massive space. The arch of steel climbed a hundred meters overhead and was two and a half times as wide. Cavernous did not describe the place. Like stars in the night sky, hundreds of lamps lit the vast interior, positioned along steel scaffolding that lined the inside of the Shelter. Overhead, a maze of yellow tracks crisscrossed the roof. Giant robotic cranes waited stationary, ready to tear apart the old Sarcophagus. Giant hooks the size of ships’ anchors and skeletal pronged grips hung from the trolley cranes.

Just inside the Shelter, Nicolas stopped long enough to hit the giant red button that closed the service hatch. It trundled slowly closed behind him, creeping down on giant gears.

According to their original plan, Nicolas and Elena were to hole up outside in a control booth on the far side of the Shelter. The booth, which controlled the winch engines, was heavily lead-lined to protect the operator from any radiation. It was also positioned on the opposite side from the concussive charges, so exposure should be minimal.

Nicolas needed to reach that booth, but if Elena remained pinned down between the tracks back there, he wanted to protect her from the burst of radiation that would come. Though not in a direct line of the exposure like the grandstands, her position could still be exposed to scatter radiation through the open rear hatch—maybe not enough to kill her, but it could destroy her chances of having healthy children.

So to protect his own future genetic heritage, Nicolas sought to shield her. But more than that, he could not totally discount that he did care for the woman. His mother would interpret such tender feelings as weakness, but Nicolas could not deny his heart.

As the door slowly lowered, Nicolas headed off.

“Elena!” Gray called out from behind the jeep. “You must help us!”

There was no answer.

At least not from Elena.

“Pierce, I don’t think you’re going to talk your way out of this,” Kowalski said. His partner crouched a few steps away. His shoulder wept blood through his jacket, but it was only a graze. “She’s one crazy bitch. Why is it always the crazy ones who are such good shots?”

“I don’t think she’s crazy,” Gray mumbled.

At least he hoped not.

He had seen how she had reacted to the revelation that Sasha was Nicolas’s biological daughter. A mix of shocked dismay and protectiveness. There was some connection between Elena and the girl, something more than just an augmented sisterhood.

He had to trust he was correct.

“Sasha came to me!” Gray called out. “Sought me out. She guided us here for a reason.”

Silence stretched. Then a soft voice finally spoke. “How? How did Sasha guide you here?”

Elena was testing him.

Gray took a deep breath. He lifted his rifle in the air and tossed it aside.

“Pierce…,” Kowalski growled. “If you think I’m throwing my gun away, you’re as nutty as she is.”

Gray stood up.

Across the gap, the Russian soldier’s rifle shifted toward him. Elena also rose and barked at the soldier, keeping him from shooting outright. Elena wanted to know more about Sasha. Across the way, the Russian pair shared a fortress of concrete pylons. Elena kept her pistol pointed at him.

Gray answered her question. “How did Sasha guide us? She drew pictures. First she guided the Gypsies to my door. Then she drew a picture of the Taj Mahal, which guided us to India, where we discovered your true heritage and history. You have to ask yourself why. Sasha is special, is she not?”

Elena just stared at him with her hard, dark eyes.

Gray took that as agreement and continued, letting her see and hear the truth in his words. “Why were we sent to India? Why even engage us at all? Why now? There has to be a reason. I think Sasha—consciously or unconsciously—is trying to stop what you’re planning on doing.”

Elena showed no flicker of acknowledgment, but Gray was still alive.

“She sent us on a path to discover your roots: from the Oracle of Delphi, through the Gypsies, to now. I think there was some reason your lineage was begun. Perhaps the fulfillment of a great prophecy that is yet to come.”

“What prophecy?” Elena asked.

Gray noted a flicker of both recognition and fear. Was there some nightmare etched into their psyches? Gray pictured the mosaics found at the Greek stronghold in India, including the last mosaic on the wall, a fiery shape rising out of smoke from the omphalos. Gray took a chance and quickly described what they had found, finishing with, “The figure looked like a boy with eyes of fire.”

The pistol in Elena’s arm began to tremble—though it still didn’t waver from its aim at his chest. Gray heard Elena mumble a name that sounded like Peter.

“Who is Peter?” Gray asked.

“Pyotr,” Elena corrected. “Sasha’s brother. He has nightmares sometimes. Wakes screaming, saying his eyes are on fire. But…but…”

“What?” Gray pressed, intrigued despite the time pressure.

“When he wakes, we all do. For just a moment, we see Pyotr burning.” She shook her head. “But his talent is empathy. He’s very strong. We attributed the nightmares to some quake of his talent that radiated outward. An empathic echo.”

“It’s not just an echo from Pyotr,” Gray realized aloud. “It’s an echo going back to the beginning.”

But where does it end?

Gray stared over to Elena. “You cannot truly want what is to come. Sasha plainly did not. She brought me here. If she wanted Nicolas’s plan to work, all she had to do was remain silent. But she didn’t. She brought me to you, Elena. To you. To this moment. You have the chance to either help Sasha or destroy what she started. It’s your choice.”

Her decision was instantaneous, perhaps born out of the fire in her brain. She pivoted on a toe and fired. The Russian soldier dropped, killed instantly.

Gray hurried over to her. “How do we stop Operation Uranus?”

“You cannot,” she answered, her voice slightly dazed, perhaps dizzy from the sudden reversal of roles, or perhaps merely waking from a long dream.

Elena handed Gray her pistol, as if knowing where he must go. He was already sidling past her and heading off between the rails. If she didn’t know how to stop Operation Uranus, perhaps Nicolas did.

“You must hurry,” she said. “But I…I may know a way to help.”

She turned and glanced toward the back side of the complex, where Nicolas been headed originally.

Gray pointed to the motorcycle. Though the front tire was flat, it would still be faster than on foot. “Kowalski, help her.”

“But she shot me.”

Gray didn’t have time to argue. He turned and sprinted through the forest of concrete pylons. The way opened ahead, lined by the tracks to either side. At the other end of the concourse, he spotted Nicolas limping through a wide door in the massive steel wall and vanishing into the darkness.

Gray pounded down the way.

Down to six minutes.

As he flew, he saw the black gap in the steel wall begin to narrow. The door was closing.

They’d escaped the jail, but now what?

Elizabeth ran behind Rosauro, while Luca trailed and guarded their backs with a pistol. Using his cane, Masterson limped as best he could next to Elizabeth. She helped the old man by holding on to his elbow.

Their first priority was to find a phone and to raise an alarm. But the entire city appeared haunted and desolate. Birches grew out of broken streets, weeds grew everywhere, buildings were scribed with lichen and moss. How were they going to find a working phone here?

“The next intersection!” Masterson gasped and waved his cane while taking a hop on his good leg. “To the left. The Polissia Hotel should be at the end of that next block.”

Masterson had suggested the destination. Apparently the hotel had been renovated for a gala the prior night and was being used this morning as a shuttle station for guests invited to the ceremony.

But what about uninvited guests?

Elizabeth had caught a glimpse of Gray and Kowalski flying away on a motorcycle as they’d made their own escape. She hoped they were okay and could do something to stop that bastard. As she fled with the others, her head ached and her eyes strained. Tension and fear wore her down.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Masterson wheezed.

She glanced at him. She knew he was apologizing for more than just involving her and the others in this escapade.

“I truly didn’t think your father was in any bloody danger,” he explained. “I thought the Russians’ interest in Archibald’s work was just a matter of industrial espionage, stealing data. I never thought it would result in his death.”

Even though she understood the professor’s position in the past and recognized the international threat now, she could not find her way to forgiving him. Not for her father, and not for involving them in all this without their consent. She was tired of secrets—both her father’s and this man’s.

As they neared the intersection, two Russian soldiers stepped from a doorway. One dropped a cigarette and ground it underfoot. The other lifted his rifle and barked at them in Russian.

“Kak tebya zavut?”

“Let me handle this,” Masterson said and waved for Rosauro and Luca to lower their weapons.

The professor straightened his white hat and leaned more heavily on his cane. He doddered to the front and called out in Russian, “Dobraye utro!”

Masterson spoke fluently. All Elizabeth understood were the words London Times. Masterson must be attempting to pass them off as visiting press.

The soldier lowered his weapon. “You are Englishers.”

Masterson nodded with a broad, embarrassed smile. “You speak English. Brilliant. We’ve gotten ourselves lost and could not find our way back to the Polissia Hotel. If you’d be so kind, perhaps you could escort us back there.”

From the crinkling of the soldiers’ brows, they must not have understood him that well. Masterson was using their own lack of fluency to unbalance them, to deflect them from questioning the cover story. But the soldier with the rifle did understand their goal.

“Polissia Gostineetsa?” he asked.

“Da! Now there’s a good chap. Could you take us there?”

The pair spoke in rapid snatches of Russian. Finally one shrugged and the other turned with a nod.

Behind them, a scream of a motorcycle erupted, shattering the quiet town. Far down the street, in the direction of the jail, a motorcycle with a flashing blue light and sidecar swung into the road, bearing two soldiers with furred caps. They were spotted. Shouts called out in Russian toward them.

Suddenly the pair of soldiers in front of them stiffened.

“Trouble,” Masterson said and pushed Elizabeth down the street. “Run!”

Rosauro spun on a heel and snap-kicked the closest soldier in the face. Bone cracked, and he fell stiffly backward. The other guard lifted his weapon, but Luca was quicker on the draw with his pistol. Blood exploded from the soldier’s shoulder, twisting him around as if mule-kicked, but his weapon chattered with automatic fire, sweeping toward them.

Masterson rolled and shielded Elizabeth, while both Luca and Rosauro dropped flat to the street. The professor fell against her and knocked her to her knees. Luca’s pistol cracked again, and the gunfire ended.

Masterson slid off her and slumped to the road. Elizabeth had felt the shuddering impacts into his body. He rolled to his back while blood pooled under him.

“Hayden!”

He waved her off, still holding his cane. “Go!”

The motorcycle screamed down the road toward them all.

Rosauro yanked her up.

Luca fired at the motorcycle, but it swerved behind cars and debris for cover. Return fire from the soldier in the sidecar sparked the pavement around them.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Masterson said again, blood bubbling at his lips.

“Hayden…” She covered her mouth, unable to find the words to thank him, to forgive him.

Still, he saw it in her eyes and gave a tiny nod of acknowledgment with a shadow of a smile, content. “Go…,” he said hoarsely, eyelids closing.

Rosauro pushed her down the street toward the next intersection. Luca kept firing one-handed behind him as he ran—then the slide on his pistol popped open, out of ammunition. Strafing fire chased them.

Rosauro guided them alongside the edge of the road, putting a rusted truck between them and the cycle. “Around the corner!”

But they’d never make it.

No longer under fire, the cycle roared straight for them.

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder. As the motorcycle swerved through the bodies in the street, Masterson suddenly rolled with the last of his strength and jammed his cane into the front wheel of the bike. The stout rod snapped and sent the cycle flipping up on its front tire and over. It crashed upside down and slid across the rough pavement, casting sparks and leaving a bloody smear.

Rosauro urged them all onward. “Hurry!”

Hopefully the cycle’s roar had covered most of the gunplay, but they had to be away from here as quickly as possible. Reaching the intersection, they headed along the next street. A quarter mile down the road stood a bright hotel, freshly painted, lights glowing. A few polished black limousines waited at the curb.

They hurried toward it. Luca tossed aside his empty pistol, and they did their best to straighten and dust off their clothes into some semblance of normalcy. They slowed when they reached the hotel and strode toward it, as if they belonged. No one accosted them. The hotel was mostly deserted, just a pair of drivers lounging in the lobby. A few staff members also worked behind a desk. Everyone else appeared to be at the ceremony.

Rosauro crossed to the front counter. “Is there a phone we could use? We…we’re with the New York Times.”

“Press room…over there,” a tired-eyed young man said in halting English. He pointed toward a door off the lobby.

“Spazeebo,” Rosauro thanked him.

She led them through the door. The room was square with a low counter that ran along the full perimeter of the space. A central table held mounds of office supplies: reams of paper, stacks of pads, pens, staplers. But what drew Elizabeth’s attention were the two-dozen black telephones that rested along the wall counter.

Rosauro headed to one side, picked up the receiver, and listened for a dial tone. She nodded her satisfaction. As she dialed, she said, “I’ll alert central command. They’ll spread the word and get an evacuation started.”

Elizabeth sank into a neighboring chair. In the momentary calm, she began to tremble all over. She could not stop. Masterson’s death…it broke something inside her. Tears started flowing—grieving for the professor, but also for her father.

Rosauro finished dialing and waited. A frown slowly formed, and her eyebrows pinched together.

“What’s wrong?” Luca asked.

She shook her head, worried. “There’s no answer.”

12:50 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter knocked lightly on the locker room door and pushed it cautiously open. He was met by a pistol pointed at his face. Kat lowered the weapon, her eyes relieved.

“How’s everyone?” he asked and followed her inside.

“So far, so good.”

A Sigma corpsman took up her position at the door. Kat led Painter into the main room, lined by banks of metal lockers and benches. At the back was an archway that led to the showers and sauna.

Kat led him to a neighboring aisle. He found Malcolm on a bench, and Lisa seated on the floor, her arm around Sasha. The girl stared up at him with large blue eyes and rocked slightly. Her gaze found Kat’s, and her entire body relaxed.

Lisa stood. She had changed into a fresh pair of scrubs, no longer covered in blood. Kat bent down, picked up Sasha, and sat on the bench with her. She whispered in the girl’s ear, which drew a small smile from the child.

Lisa slipped into Painter’s arms, then stared up at him for a breath. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, concerned.

Painter thought he’d been hiding it well, but how did one completely mask the fury and grief that filled him now?

“It’s Sean,” he said.

Kat and Malcolm glanced over to him.

Painter took a deep breath. “The bastard killed him.” He could still hear the gunshot, the snap of feedback, and see his friend’s body fall.

“Oh, God…,” Lisa mumbled and pulled tighter to him.

“Mapplethorpe’s heading down here, searching for the girl.” Painter checked his watch.

Kat noted his attention. “The fail-safe?”

“Set for four minutes.” Painter prayed he had everything prepared correctly. The air was now heavy with the sweet-smelling accelerant.

“If we have to defend the room,” Kat asked, “do we have to worry about the gunfire igniting the air?”

He shook his head. “The compound functions like aerosolized C4. It takes a strong electrical spark to set it off, not a flash of fire.”

Lisa kept to his side. “Then what do we do from here?”

Painter waved them to their feet. He wanted to protect them as best he could. He would lose no others. But he didn’t have much to offer.

“We’d better hide.”

Mapplethorpe followed his commando team down the hall.

He had employed this same group of men many times in the past, a mercenary team that included former British S.A.S. and the South Africa’s Recces. They were his muscle across the world political map. They shied at nothing that was asked of them: assassinations, kidnappings, torture, rape. Whatever clandestine operation he needed run, these men would get it done. Best of all, afterward they would simply disappear, leaving no trace, just shadows and ghosts.

It was hard men such as these who kept the country secure. Where others feared to tread, these soldiers did not balk.

The point man reached a door at the end of the hall. Its sign read LOCKER ROOM. The soldier held up a fist. In his other hand, he clutched an electronic tracker.

Earlier, Trent McBride had reported that the child’s microchip transmitter was still functioning. There was no place she could hide. They’d picked up her signal on this level.

The commando waited upon his order to proceed.

Mapplethorpe waved him through the door. He checked his watch. The fail-safe was set for another three minutes. In case Painter Crowe decided not to abort the firestorm, he wanted the girl nabbed and evacuated. If they were quick enough, it should not be a problem. An emergency exit lay at the other end of the hallway and led off to an underground garage.

Ahead, the soldiers burst through the door and ran low and fast into the next room. Mapplethorpe followed in their wake, closing the door behind him. He heard quiet orders flow among the group as they spread through the rows of lockers.

Mapplethorpe followed the commando with the tracker, flanked by two more soldiers. The lead man ran along the lockers, his arm held high. He finally reached the source of the signal, dropped his arm, and pointed.

In the silence, Mapplethorpe heard a faint whimper coming from inside the locker.

At last.

A padlock secured the door, but another soldier whipped out a small set of bolt cutters and snapped the lock off.

Mapplethorpe waved. They were running out of time. “Hurry!”

The head commando tugged the locker’s handle and yanked the door open. Mapplethorpe caught a glimpse of a digital tape recorder, a radio transmitter—and a Taser pistol wired to the door.

A trap.

Mapplethorpe turned and ran.

Behind him, the pistol fired with a pop and a crackle of electricity.

Mapplethorpe screamed as he heard a loud whuff of ignition, sounding like the firing of a gas grill. A flash of heat, and a fireball blew outward. It picked him off his feet and carried him down the row. His clothes roasted to his back. He breathed flames, his scalp burned to bone. He struck the wall, no longer human, just a flaming torch of agony.

He rolled and burned for a stretch of eternity—until darkness snuffed him away.

A floor below in the gym locker room, Painter heard the screams echoing down from the medical locker room directly overhead. He had set the trap above, knowing Mapplethorpe would come searching for the girl’s signal. He had planted one of the Cobra radio transceivers used to draw off the helicopters back at the safe house. Like before, he set the device to mimic the girl’s signal.

As a boy, Painter had often gone hunting with his father on the Mashantucket Reservation, his people’s tribal homelands. He had grown skilled at the art of baiting a trap and luring prey. Today was no different.

His false trail had drawn the others like moths to a flame.

And like those moths, they met a fiery end.

Painter felt no remorse for his trap. He still pictured Sean McKnight falling to the floor. Two other staff members had also been killed. Painter checked his watch. The second hand swept past the twelve, crossing the fail-safe deadline set for one o’clock.

He held his breath, but nothing happened.

Earlier, after setting the fail-safe, he had fled to the mechanical room and manually disabled the electronic sparking system. He had needed the levels flooded with the accelerant gas, but Mapplethorpe had been right. Painter could not let the men and women captured by the commando team die, not even to protect the girl. So he had set the trap instead, localizing the firestorm to the one room and luring Mapplethorpe and his team to it.

With a majority of the soldiers dispatched and its leader killed, the others would likely disperse and vanish into the night.

Lisa leaned against him. “Will the fires spread?”

The answer came from above. Sprinklers engaged and rained both water and foam over them.

“Is it over?” she asked.

Painter nodded. “Right here it is.”

Still, Painter knew things elsewhere were far from settled.

10:53 A.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Gray sprinted toward the closing steel door at the back end of the massive hangar. He pounded down the roadway between the tall rails. He passed the bodies of two dead workers, shot in the head.

His heart thundered in his ears, but he still heard cheers echoing from the distant grandstands, as if this were a track meet and he was sprinting for the finish line in the four-hundred-meter dash. Only in this race, the spectators’ lives depended on him crossing the finish line in time.

With a final burst of speed, he reached the hatchway and dove on his belly under the descending door. It was like entering a crawl space beneath a house. The door was yards thick, composed of plates of steel. He scrabbled forward as the edge continued to drop, pressing down on him. Panic fired his heart. He kicked and paddled, worming his way forward as he was flattened farther under the thick door.

Finally, he reached the end and rolled out into a cavernous space. He took in the sight in a heartbeat: a vast interior, lined by scaffolding, enclosing a ten-story blocky structure of concrete and blackened steel. It was the infamous Sarcophagus, the gravestone over reactor four. By now, the hangar had been hauled almost completely over the crypt. Beyond the Sarcophagus rose a wall of concrete. The hangar would end its crawl and butt up against that wall, sealing the Sarcophagus completely.

But for now, an arch of sunlight spanned the Sarcophagus like a fiery rainbow. It was all that was left open to the world. As Gray stared, the sunlit rainbow grew incrementally narrower.

Off to the left, Gray heard someone speaking in Russian outside the hangar, proud and bold, broadcasted loudly from the grandstands. He also heard the continual steady drone of the hydraulic jacks as they pulled the hangar the last few feet.

Then to the right, a pistol fired.

Gray pictured the bodies outside.

Nicolas was leaving an easy trail of bread crumbs to follow.

As Gray sprinted in that direction, he kept low as he dodged around several stacks of plate steel, a pile of broken concrete, and a forklift. The air smelled of oil and tasted rusty. As he reached the corner of the Sarcophagus, he freed the pistol from his belt.

Peering around the corner, he spotted a figure limping toward the narrowing arch of sunlight. He was about twenty yards from escaping. Gray leveled his pistol.

“Nicolas!” Gray barked at him.

Startled, the man tripped around.

“Don’t move!” Gray shouted.

Nicolas searched for a second, then turned and fled. Gray could not risk killing the man. Not until he found out what was planned. So he took careful aim and shot. Nicolas’s good leg went out from under him. He sprawled onto the floor.

Gray rushed toward him, but a man such as Nicolas did not rise to his height of power by folding under stress. The senator rolled behind a stack of steel I-beams. Shots fired back at Gray, forcing him to duck to the side. He took shelter behind a pallet of lumber.

“Chyort! Rodilsya cherez jopu!” Nicolas cursed at him in Russian, his voice edging toward hysteria. He yelled at Gray. “We can’t stay here, you svoloch! We have less than three minutes.”

Beyond the man’s hiding place, Gray watched the sliver of sunlight between the massive concrete wall and the trundling hangar pinch ever closer together. There was only four feet of space left. No wonder Nicolas was in a hurry.

“Then tell me how to stop Operation Uranus!” Gray called back.

“There is no way to stop it! It’s all been set in motion. All we can do is get out of the way…now!”

“Tell me what you’ve done.”

“Fine! Concussion charges! Planted inside the pillars on the other side of the Sarcophagus. They’ll rip a wall down and expose everyone on that side to a lethal dose of radiation. There’s no way to defuse them. We MUST go now!”

Gray attempted to digest what he’d heard, trying to seek a solution. Even if he ran outside and screamed for an evacuation, it would be too late.

“There’s no reason for us to die with them,” Nicolas continued. “The world needs a new direction. Needs strong men. Like myself. Like you. Our group’s goal is to better the state of mankind, to forge a new Renaissance.”

Gray remembered the senator’s earlier discussion about propping up a new prophet onto the world stage. So this is how he planned to do it, creating world chaos, then offering a solution, one promoted by a figurehead who was guided by the prescience and knowledge of augmented children.

“Even if we die here,” Nicolas pressed, “it won’t be the end. Plans are already in motion that cannot be stopped. Our deaths would serve no purpose. Join us. We can use such men as yourself.”

In truth, Gray could think of no way to stop what was to come.

Beyond Nicolas, the walls continued to close.

“Two minutes!” he called to Gray. “There’s a lead-lined control booth just outside. We can still make it if we leave right now!”

Nicolas shifted behind his hiding place, plainly considering making a run for it. But with a twisted ankle on one side and a wounded leg on the other, he must know that path was certain death.

Then again, so was staying here.

Nicolas finally tossed out his pistol and stepped into the open. He faced Gray, arms out to either side, tottering on his legs. “If this is the only way to live, so be it!”

Gray cursed under his breath. Unable to stop the deaths to come, his only recourse was to apprehend the mass murderer who had orchestrated the deadly operation. Gray stepped out into the open with his pistol leveled.

At that moment, the drone of the hydraulic pumps climbed into a screaming roar. With a groan of twenty thousand tons, the massive arch began to shudder.

What was happening?

Kowalski stepped over the dead soldier to join Elena at the control panel. While Gray had fled on foot, Elena had driven the motorcycle like a NASCAR driver on crack. Kowalski had clung so hard to the sidecar’s handles that his fingers still trembled. They had rocketed to the rear side of the steel archway and sailed up to a concrete bunker that trailed big cables.

It was the control shack for the hydraulic jacks.

A fierce but brief firefight followed.

Kowalski had tried to help, but Elena spun like a ballerina with a machine gun. She danced and pirouetted through a hail of bullets as if anticipating each shot. She took out four soldiers. Kowalski managed to kill only one.

Nicolas’s men, Elena had said once the gunfight ended.

Once inside, Elena had set to work. Bent over the control board, she pushed the hydraulics toward the redline, seeking to close the hangar faster.

Just outside the shack’s window, one of the towering motors smoked, looking ready to blow. On one of the screens, flashing red warning signs blinked.

That couldn’t be good.

Kowalski stepped out of Elena’s way and stared at a row of monitors. They displayed video feed from inside the hangar. On the middle screen, Kowalski spotted two tiny figures on the floor.

Gray and the Russian guy.

From the angle of the camera, Kowalski could see what Gray could not.

Oh, crap!

“Elena!” he called out. “A little help here!”

He turned in time to see her suddenly slump toward the floor. He reached out and caught her around the waist. His hand found the shirt under her dark jacket soaking and hot. He parted the coat and saw her entire left side drenched in blood. It seemed her dancing had not been as flawless as he’d thought.

“Why didn’t you say something?” he said with an ache in his voice.

She waved to the monitors. “Show me.”

Gray struggled to comprehend the sudden acceleration of the hangar’s closure. The momentum of twenty thousand tons was not easy to get moving quickly, but it was definitely closing faster, accompanied by the scream of hydraulic motors.

“No!” Nicolas cried out.

Gray realized the anguish in his voice was twofold: fear that he now had even less time to escape, and dismay that his plans would be ruined if the hangar sealed too soon.

“Let’s go!” Gray said, pointing his pistol at the man.

Nicolas lowered his outstretched arms—and revealed what was hidden behind the pile of I-beams. The man’s hand had been out of view until now.

A second pistol.

It pointed at Gray’s belly and fired.

Gray managed to twist sideways, but the bullet still burned a line of fire across his stomach. He pointed his own weapon and fired. The shot, thrown off by the sudden attack, ricocheted harmlessly off the floor. Even worse, the pistol’s slide popped open.

Out of bullets.

The same could not be said for Nicolas.

The Russian drew a dead bead upon Gray.

As a consequence of his concentration, Nicolas missed the movement along the roof of the arched hangar. A massive yellow trolley crane swept above them and dropped a giant hook.

The whistling as it plummeted finally drew Nicolas’s eye. He glanced up as the massive steel hook, large enough to anchor ships, slammed into the pile of beams next to him. He tried to leap aside, but the impact knocked half the pile over, pinning his legs.

His pistol skittered across the concrete floor.

“Help me!” the man groaned, desperate, panicked.

No time.

Beyond the pile, the narrowing gap between the steel arch and concrete wall was little more than a foot wide. Gray vaulted over the collapsed pile of beams and sprinted for the exit.

As he reached the slit of sunlight, Nicolas screamed at him. “You’ve not won, you svoloch! Millions will still die!”

Gray had no time to question him. He shoved into the crack and wormed between the squeezing walls, concrete on one side, steel on the other. The vault was a dozen yards thick. He scooted as fast as he could. Still the pressure began to squeeze his chest, trying to hold him for the final crush.

He took one last breath and exhaled all his air, collapsing his chest. He shoved the last few feet and fell out of the crack with a great gasp of air, landing on his hands and knees.

Like being born a second time.

Behind him, he missed a figure standing off to the side of the hangar. She slipped into the crack as he vacated it.

Gray turned. “Elena! No! You’ll never make it!”

He rolled to his feet and lunged for her. But she had already slid deep into the crack, deeper than he could follow with his larger form. She moved swiftly, her lithe figure fading farther and farther away.

Gray prayed she’d make it safely to the other side, but it was still certain death. Only then did he note the long smear of blood trailing into the narrowing crack.

A growled voice spoke behind him.

“Where’s Elena?” Kowalski asked.

Gray watched her vanish out of the crack. He shook his head.

Kowalski stared up and down the side of the hangar. “She left me up there. After she dropped that anchor on that bastard. Said she was coming down here to help.”

Gray turned away. “I think that’s where she’s headed.”

Nicolas lay on his back, his legs weighted under a half ton of steel beams. Through a haze of agony, he heard footsteps stumbling toward him. He turned his head. Elena came up to him.

His eyes winced with a pain deeper than any broken bones. “Oh, milaya moya, what are you doing here?”

She sank next to him.

Blood soaked through her shirt.

“Lubov moya…,” he said with a mix of pain and protectiveness. He lifted an arm, and she fell into his embrace. He held her and rocked her gently as the last of the sunlight squeezed away.

A commanding grind of steel on concrete sounded with a note of finality as the Shelter sealed. A few moments later, a crumbling crash echoed as the far side of the Sarcophagus collapsed. The concussion charges had worked as planned, but the Shelter was already closed tight around it, sparing those outside.

He wasn’t so lucky.

Nicolas stared up at the lighted archway. The inner steel surfaces were all lined by a thick coat of polycarbonate, all the better to reflect radiation and hold it inside.

Not that it mattered, but Nicolas lifted the flap of the dosimeter badge secured to his jacket pocket. The surface had been white when he’d put it on this morning. It was now solid black.

He let it go and reached another arm to cradle Elena better.

“Why?” he asked.

There were many questions buried in that one word. Why had Elena betrayed him? Nicolas knew she must have. Nothing else made sense. But also why did she come back?

Elena did not answer. He shifted and saw the glaze to her eyes.

Dead.

And so was he.

The living dead.

He knew what end awaited him. He had lived his professional life exploring such deaths. It would be as agonizing as it was humiliating.

As he cradled Elena closer to him, something slipped from her hand and landed on his leg. He reached out and grabbed this last gift from her.

His pistol.

She must have collected it from the floor.

This is why she had come.

To say good-bye and to offer him a way to escape with her.

He nestled into her and kissed her cold lips one last time. “Ty moyo solnyshko…”

She was indeed his sun.

Holding her, he raised the gun to his lips.

And took his escape.

Chapter 19

September 7, 11:00 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

With a rifle over his shoulder, Monk climbed the last switchback of the road. Ahead, the mining complex clustered in front of a granite cliff face. The metal outbuildings and old powerhouse had all oxidized. Roofs and gutters dripped icicles of rust, windows were broken or shuttered, and corroded equipment lay where they’d been dropped decades ago: shovels, picks, wheelbarrows.

Off by the cliffs rose tall mounds of old mine tailings and waste rock dumps. Amid the stone piles rose the tower of a tipple, with its loading booms, hoists, and various chutes used to tip ore ears and unload them into trucks.

As Monk limped on his hastily bandaged leg, he wondered how he knew so much about a mining operation. Had his family been involved—

His head suddenly jangled through a series of flashbulb-popping images: an older man in coveralls, coated in coal dust…the same man in a coffin…a woman crying…

An electrical stab of pain ended the flickering bits of memory.

Wincing, he led the children and Marta through a maze of conveyor belts, ore car tracks, and dump chutes toward their goal. A pair of rails led to a gaping opening in a cliff face. It was the main entrance to the mine.

As they crossed, Monk looked over his shoulder.

Lake Karachay spread below. Monk estimated it was two miles across the width here, and three times as long. He searched the forested mountains on the far side, looking for any evidence of where they’d started this journey.

“We must hurry,” Konstantin reminded him.

Monk nodded. The older boy walked between the two younger children. Marta trailed. He led them toward the opening.

As he neared, he discovered a problem. A large wooden barrier, constructed of stacked and mortared wooden logs, blocked the mine shaft from floor to roof.

From the condition of the complex outside, it looked as if no one had been here in ages. But Monk spotted a pile of cigarette butts and empty vodka bottles at the foot of the barrier. Fresh boot prints covered the sandy floor. The mine below was not as abandoned as it appeared. Someone had been taking a break here recently.

Monk glanced behind him. There were no parked trucks or recent tire tracks crossing the complex, so whoever had been lounging here had left by another means. Konstantin had already described that means.

An underground train crossed under the lake from Mine Complex 337 below to Chelyabinsk 88. Whoever labored in the mines must ordinarily exit out the other side.

Monk prayed they would not be expecting visitors at their back door.

He crossed to the rectangle of riveted steel set into the barrier.

“What do we do?” Monk asked. “Knock?”

Konstantin frowned and crossed to the door. He lifted the latch and pushed. The door swung open, unlocked.

Monk fumbled his rifle around and pointed it through the door. “Warn a guy before you do that!” he whispered.

“No one comes here,” Konstantin said. “Too dangerous. So no need for keys. Only sealed to keep bears and wolves away.”

“And the stray tiger,” Monk mumbled.

Konstantin dropped his pack, opened it, and fished out their flashlight. He passed it to Monk, who shouldered his rifle.

Ducking through the door in the main tunnel, Monk pointed his flashlight. Massive wooden beams shored up the passageway as it slanted into the mountain. A set of steel tracks headed into the darkness, extending beyond the reach of the flashlight’s glow. Closer at hand, a pair of ore cars rested on the tracks near the barrier.

Down the way, Monk noted shadowy branching tunnels. He suspected the mountain was honeycombed with shafts and tunnels. No wonder the current miners occasionally wandered up out of the Stygian darkness for a little light, even if it was in the shadow of a poisonous lake.

Monk asked for directions as they headed out. “So where to?”

Konstantin kept silent.

Monk turned to him.

The boy shrugged. “I do not know. All I know is down.”

Monk sighed. Well, that was a direction.

Flashlight in hand, he descended into the darkness.

Savina noted all the smiling faces. Excited chatter spread among the older children, while the younger ones scurried around, trying to dispense nervous energy. They were in direct contrast to the very youngest among them, those under five and too immature for their implants. Those few remained quiet and detached, demonstrating varying levels of untreated autism: sitting silently, staring vacantly, plagued by repetitive gestures.

Four teachers sought to organize their sixty or so charges.

“Stay in your groups!”

The train waited beyond the open blast doors at the back of Chelyabinsk 88. It would be transporting the children for a short pleasure ride. The young ones were occasionally allowed such a luxury, but today the train was on a one-way trip. It would not be returning, coming to a dead stop at the heart of Operation Saturn.

Behind Savina’s shoulders, the old Soviet-era industrial apartments stared down at the children with hollow eyes. The teachers also had the same haunted look despite their bright words.

“Did all of you take your medicine?” a matronly woman called out.

The medicine was a sedative combined with a radiosensitive compound. While excited now, in another hour the children would be drifting into a disassociated slumber. It would ease any anxiety when the charges blew at the far end of the tunnel and initiated Operation Saturn. The first dump of lake water through the heart of the tunnel and its subsequent blast of radiation would transform the radiosensitive compound in the children’s bloodstream into a deadly nerve toxin, killing them instantly.

The group had considered simply euthanizing the children via lethal injection, but such an intimate act of killing strained even the most professional detachment. Plus afterward, all the small limp bodies would have had to been hauled, loaded, and transported to the heart of Operation Saturn. The plan was for the radiation, blasting for weeks as the lake drained, to burn the bodies and denature the DNA beyond examination—that is, if anyone ever dared approach the bodies. The radiation levels in the tunnel would defy penetration for decades.

So in the end, the current plan was deemed efficient, minimally cruel, and offered the children one last bit of joy and frivolity.

Still, Savina stood with her arms behind her back. Her hands were clenched together in a white-knuckled grip, necessary to keep from grabbing children and pulling them from the train.

But she had saved ten.

She had to console herself with this reality.

The ten best.

They remained in the apartment building behind her, where the control station for Operation Saturn was located. Once done here, the ten Omega subjects would be transported to the new facility in Moscow. It was time for the project to climb out of the darkness and into the sun.

It would be her legacy.

But such a rise had a cost.

Bright laughter and merry calls trailed behind the last of the children. They argued over who would get to ride in the open ore cars and who would be in the front or rear cabs. Only a few older voices wondered why they were going without any of the adults, but even these sounded more excited than concerned.

With the last of the children loaded, the train hissed, hydraulic brakes sighed, and with a snap of electricity, it rolled off down the tunnel. Laughter and shouts trailed back to them. A moment later the blast doors slowly sealed over the end of the tunnel, cutting off their happy voices.

The four teachers headed away. No one spoke to anyone. They barely made contact. Except for a thick-waisted matron in an ankle-length apron. As she passed, she lifted a consoling hand toward Savina, then thought better of it and lowered it again.

“You didn’t have to come,” the woman mumbled.

Savina turned away without a word, not trusting her voice.

Yes…Yes, I did.

11:16 A.M.
Pripyat, Ukraine

Gray sat in the back of the limousine. Up front, Rosauro drove, with Luca in the passenger seat. They rocketed past the first checkpoint on their flight out of the city. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone stretched in a thirty-kilometer radius out from the reactor complex. It had two checkpoints, one at the ten-kilometer mark and one at the thirty.

Gray wanted to be outside that second gate before anyone realized something was amiss at the reactor. It would not take long for the dead bodies to be discovered and for the place to be locked down.

Earlier, as Gray and Kowalski had fled overland back to Pripyat from the site of the ceremony, he had called Rosauro on the walkie-talkie that Masterson had supplied him. She had reported an inability to reach Sigma command. He had instructed her to keep trying. By the time Gray arrived at the hotel, lines of communication with Washington had reopened. Rosauro had commandeered one of the limousines. She had also stolen the driver’s mobile phone.

Gray clutched the phone now, awaiting a call from Director Crowe. Painter had his hands full over in Washington, but at least Mapplethorpe was out of commission and Sasha was safe.

Gray shared the back of the limousine with Elizabeth and Kowalski. His partner sat bare-chested as Elizabeth treated the gunshot wound to his shoulder.

“Quit wiggling!”

“Well, it goddamn hurts.”

“It’s just iodine.”

“Sooo, it still stings like a son of a—”

The woman’s scowl silenced any further expletive.

Gray had to give the man credit. Kowalski had saved his life at the hangar by dropping that half-ton steel hook. Though Elena might have done the deed, it had been Kowalski’s sharp eyes that had noted the threat and saved him.

Still, they weren’t out of danger yet.

Gray turned and stared out at the roll of passing hills, dotted with copses of birches. His heart continued to pound. His mind spun through a hundred different scenarios. As they raced away from Chernobyl, he knew they should be heading somewhere.

Nicolas’s last words plagued him: You’ve not won…millions will still die.

What did he mean? Gray knew it had not been an idle threat. Something else was scheduled to happen. Even the name of Nicolas’s plan—Operation Uranus—had bothered Gray before. The name was taken from an old Soviet victory during World War II against the Germans. But the victory was not won by the single operation alone. It was accomplished via a perfectly executed tandem of strategies. Two operations: Uranus followed by Saturn.

As Gray fled the hangar, Nicolas had hinted as much. Another operation was set to commence, but where and in what form?

The phone finally rang.

Gray flipped it open and pressed it to his ear. “Director Crowe?”

“How are you doing out there?” Painter asked.

“As well as can be expected.”

“I’ve got transportation arranged for you. There’s a private airstrip a few miles outside the Exclusion Zone, used to accommodate the ceremony’s VIP guests. British intelligence has offered the use of one of their jets. They’re apparently trying to save face for not listening close enough to Professor Masterson, one of their own former agents. By the way, I’ve gone ahead and sounded the alarm. Word is spreading like wildfire through intelligence channels about the aborted attack at Chernobyl. For safety’s sake, evacuations are already under way, but so far you’re ahead of that chaos.”

“Very good.” Gray could not discount that the director’s firm voice had helped take the edge off his anxiety. He wasn’t alone in this.

“You’ve certainly had a busy day, Commander.”

“As have you…but I don’t think it’s over.”

“How do you mean?”

Gray related what the Russian senator had said and about his own misgivings.

“Hold on,” Painter said. “I’ve got Kat Bryant and Malcolm Jennings here. I’m putting you on speaker.”

Gray continued, explaining his fears of a second operation, something aimed at a larger number of casualties.

Kowalski also listened as Elizabeth packed a bandage over his wound. “Tell them about the jelly beans,” he called over.

Gray frowned at him. Back at the hangar, Elena had attempted to warn Kowalski about something before she’d departed to Nicolas’s side, but the man had clearly misunderstood, losing something in the translation.

“You know,” Kowalski pressed. “The eighty-eight jelly beans.”

Kat’s voice whispered faintly from the phone. “What did he say?”

“I don’t think he understood what—”

“Did he say chella-bins?”

“No, jelly beans!”

Kowalski nodded, satisfied. Gray mentally shook his head. He could not believe he was having this conversation.

A confusing bit of chatter followed as Painter, Kat, and Malcolm discussed some matter. Gray didn’t follow all of it. He heard Kat say something about the number eighty-eight drawn in blood.

Malcolm’s voice spoke louder, excited, directed at both Gray and Kat. “Could what you both have heard been the word Chelyabinsk?”

“Chelyabinsk?” Gray asked aloud.

Kowalski perked up.

Gray rolled his eyes. “That might be it.”

Kat agreed.

Malcolm spoke quickly, a sure sign the pathologist was excited. “I’ve come across that name. During all the tumult here, I hadn’t had a chance to contemplate its significance.”

“What?” Painter pressed.

“Dr. Polk’s body. The radiation signature from samples in his lungs matched the specific isotope content of the uranium and plutonium used at Chernobyl. But as you know, subsequent tests clouded this assessment. It wasn’t as clear as I’d initially thought. It was more like his body had been polluted by a mix of radioactive sources, though the strongest still appeared to be the fuel source at Chernobyl.”

“Where are you going with all this?” Kat asked.

“I based my findings on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s database of hot zones. But one region of the world is so polluted by radioactivity that it’s impossible to define one signature to it. That region is Chelyabinsk, in central Russia. The Soviet Union hid the heart of its uranium mining and plutonium production in the Ural Mountains there. For five decades, the region was off-limits to everyone. Only in the last couple of years has the restriction been lifted.” He paused for emphasis. “It was in Chelyabinsk that the fuel for Chernobyl was mined and stored.”

Gray sat straighter. “And you think it was there that Dr. Polk was poisoned—not at the reactor, but where its fuel was produced. In Chelyabinsk.”

“I believe so. Even the number eighty-eight. The Soviets built underground mining cities in the Ural Mountains and named them after the local postal codes. Chelyabinsk forty, Chelyabinsk seventy-five.”

And Chelyabinsk 88.

Gray’s heart pounded harder again. He now knew where they had to go. Even had the postal code.

Painter understood, too. “I’ll alert British intelligence. Let them know you’ll be going on a little detour. They should be able to get you to the Ural Mountains in a little over an hour.”

Gray prayed they still had enough time.

Millions will die.

As the limousine reached the second checkpoint and was waved through by a bored-looking guard, Painter continued. “But, Commander, in such a short time, I can’t get you any ground support out there.”

Gray spoke as the limousine sailed out of the Exclusion Zone and into the open country. “I think we’ve got that covered.”

To either side of the road, older-model trucks had parked in low ditches or pulled into turnouts. A good dozen of them. Men sat in the open beds and crowded the cabs.

In the front seat, Luca leaned over to Rosauro and spoke in a rush. She slowed the limousine, and Luca straightened and waved an arm out the passenger window.

The signal was plain to read.

Follow us.

As the limousine continued, the trucks pulled out and trailed after them. Like Director Crowe, Luca Hearn had sounded his own alarm, using the phones back at the hotel after they’d initially failed to raise central command.

Gray recalled the man’s words in describing the Romani: We are everywhere. Luca was proven right as his clarion call was answered.

Behind the limousine, a Gypsy army gathered.

11:38 A.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

The farther Monk descended into the mine, the more he became convinced the place was deserted. He heard no echo of voices or thrum of distant machinery. And while this eased his mind that they’d not be discovered, it was also disconcerting. With the silence, it was as if the place were holding its breath.

Monk headed down a steeply slanted access tunnel, his wounded leg burning and painful. Without a map, Monk had to follow the trail of whoever left the cigarette butts and bottles at the front gate to the mine. It wasn’t a hard track to discern. The sandy bed of the floor showed clear boot prints. The miner took a direct route back, crossing down some steep access chutes.

And though the place seemed deserted now, Monk had found plenty of evidence of past activity: fresh tailings dumped into shafts, shiny new gear leaning on walls, even an abandoned ice chest half filled with water and floating cans of beer.

Konstantin trailed with his sister, while Pyotr remained glued to Monk’s hip. The child’s eyes were huge upon the dark passages. Monk felt the fever of his terror as Pyotr clutched to him. It wasn’t the cramped spaces that scared him, but the darkness. Monk had occasionally clicked the lamp off to search for any telltale evidence of light.

At those moments, Pyotr would wrap tight to him.

Marta also closed upon the boy, protective, but even the chimpanzee trembled in those moments of pitch darkness, as if she shared Pyotr’s terror.

Monk reached the bottom of the chute. It dumped into another long passageway with a railway track and an idle conveyor belt. As he searched for boot prints, he noted a slight graying to the darkness at the end of the tunnel. He crouched, pulled Pyotr to his side in the crook of his stumped arm, and clicked off his flashlight.

Darkness dropped over them like a shroud. But at the far end of the passage, a faint glow was evident.

Konstantin moved next to Monk.

“No more light,” Monk whispered and passed the boy the darkened flashlight. If he was wrong about the place being deserted, he didn’t want to announce their approach with a blaze of light.

Monk swung up the rifle he had confiscated from the dead Russian sniper. “Quietly now,” he warned.

Monk edged down the tunnel. He walked on the ends of the railroad ties, avoiding the crunch of the gravel bed. The children followed in his footsteps. Marta balanced along one of the rails. As they continued, Monk strained for any voices, any sign of habitation. All he heard was an echoing drip of water. It was a noise that had grown louder the deeper they descended. Monk was all too conscious of the neighboring presence of Lake Karachay.

He also became aware of a growing odor, a mix of oil, grease, and diesel smoke. But as they reached the bend, Monk’s keen nose detected another scent under the industrial smells. It was fetid, organic, foul.

Cautiously rounding the turn, Monk discovered the passage ended in a central cavern, blasted out of the rock. It was only a hundredth the size of Chelyabinsk 88, but it still rose three stories high and stretched half the size of a football field.

Most of the floor was covered in parked equipment and piles of construction material: coiled conduit, stacks of wooden beams, a half-dismantled column of scaffolding, piles of rock. Off to one side rose a tall drill rig, mounted on the back of a truck. The place looked as if it had been hurriedly evacuated. There was no order to it, like someone packing a moving van in a hurry, just dumping things haphazardly.

At least they’d left the lights on.

Several sodium lamps glowed at the opposite side of the room.

“Careful,” Monk said. He motioned the children to hang back, to be ready to bolt and hide among the debris if necessary.

Monk crept forward, staying low, rifle ready at his shoulder. He zigzagged across the space, holding his breath, cautious of his footing. Reaching the far side, he discovered a tall set of steel blast doors, sealed and reflecting the lamplight. They looked newer than the mine works. To the right stood a small shack, about the size of a tollbooth. Through its open door, Monk spotted a few dark monitors, a keyboard, and rows of switches.

Nobody was here.

Monk noted the tremble in his rifle. He was wired and edgy. He took a deep settling breath. The fetid reek was much stronger. Off to the left, Monk noted black oil pooled beyond a stack of equipment. He crept out and peeked around the corner.

Not oil. Blood.

He found the source of the smell. A tumble of bodies draped the back wall, tangled in a heap, outfitted in mining gear or white laboratory coats. Blood and gore spattered the walls behind them.

Death by firing squad.

Someone had been cleaning house.

Behind him, Konstantin appeared, creeping out into the open. Monk returned, shook his head, and pointed to the computer shack. He didn’t want the children to see the slaughter. He motioned to Pyotr and Kiska to remain where they were.

Konstantin joined Monk as he strode toward the blast doors. “I’ve been here before,” the boy said. “We’re allowed to ride the train sometimes. These are the substation controls.”

“Show me,” Monk said.

Konstantin had already highlighted what General-Major Savina Martov was planning, nicknamed Operation Saturn. It lay beyond these doors.

The two crammed into the shack, and Konstantin studied the substation’s controls, his eyes flickering over the Cyrillic lettering. Monk could almost hear his mind flying at speeds beyond normal mentation. After a moment of study, his hands flew over the board, flipping switches with deft assuredness, as if he’d done this a thousand times before.

As he worked, Monk asked, “How did you learn about Operation Saturn?”

Konstantin glanced to him with a wincing look of embarrassment. “My skill is rapid calculation and derivative analysis. I work often in the Warren’s computer laboratory.” He shrugged.

Monk understood. You could turn a boy into a savant but he was still a boy: curious, mischievous, pushing boundaries.

“You hacked into her files.”

He shrugged again. “A week ago, Sasha—Pyotr’s sister—she drew me a picture. Gave it to me in the middle of the night. When we were all woken by one of Pyotr’s nightmares.”

“What picture?”

“The train here, with many children on board, all dead and burning. It also showed the mining site just past the blast doors here. So…so the next day, I broke into the files about the operation. I learned what was planned and when it was scheduled to happen. I didn’t know what to do. Whom to trust. Sasha left with Dr. Raev for America, so I talked to Pyotr.” Konstantin shook his head. “I don’t know how Pyotr knew…maybe he doesn’t even know…it’s sometimes like that.”

Konstantin stared up at Monk for understanding.

Though he didn’t completely, Monk still nodded. “What did Pyotr know?” he pressed.

“He is a strong empath. He sensed you would help us. He even knew your name. Said his sister whispered it to him in a dream. They are very strange, those two, very powerful.”

Monk heard a trace of fear in the boy’s voice.

Konstantin even glanced warily back toward Pyotr, then set back to work. “So we came for you.”

With a final flick of a switch, a row of monitors glowed to life across the top of the control board. They showed black-and-white images, views from different angles of a small cavern, rigged with scaffolding. On the floor was bolted a large steel iris.

The heart of Operation Saturn.

Motion drew Monk’s eye to the centermost screen. It showed a train rested outside the mining site. Open ore cars were loaded with children. Some had climbed out and stood around in confusion. Others appeared to be laughing and playing.

Konstantin clutched Monk’s sleeve. “They…they’re already here.”

Savina sat in the brightly lit control station, flanked by two technicians. They were running final diagnostics on two computers. The station was in a converted subbasement bunker beneath one of the abandoned apartment buildings. There were no windows. Their eyes on the world came from seven LCD screens wired into the walls. They displayed video feed from the cameras in the tunnel and at the operation site.

She stared at the parked train for another breath, then stood up, unable to remain seated. She felt a familiar crick in her back. She had failed to take her steroid injection, too busy with all the final preparations. She turned away from the view of the train. Not because it hurt to look—which it did—but because anxiety ran through her.

She checked her wristwatch. It was more than half past eleven o’clock, and she had still not heard from Nicolas. She exited the control room, so the others did not see her wring her hands. It was a weak matronly gesture, and she forced herself to stop. She headed to the stairs and climbed toward the level above. Not with any destination in mind, only to keep moving.

From her contacts in the intelligence community, she had already heard the rumblings of an “accident” at Chernobyl. A radiation leak. Dead bodies. The place was being evacuated. And if Nicolas had been successful, such a mass departure was too late. Perhaps her son had been caught up in the resultant chaos and had been unable to report to her yet. Her operation was set to commence in another forty-five minutes, once she heard confirmation from Nicolas.

As she climbed the stairs, she imagined him gloating in his success, possibly even enjoying a secret tryst with little Elena. It would not be unlike Nicolas to celebrate first and attend to business afterward. Anger tempered her anxiety.

She finally reached the floor above the control station. It had been converted into a domicile for the technicians: bedrooms, exercise space, and a central communal area full of sofas and dining tables. The only occupants at the moment were ten children. She knew each by name.

They turned to stare at her, their heads swiveling all at once, like a flock of birds turning in midflight. Savina felt a flicker of apprehension, a recognition of the foreignness of their minds. The Omega subjects were savants so talented that their skills crossed the threshold of the physical to a realm where Savina could not travel.

Boris, a thirteen-year-old with eyes so blue they appeared frosted, seemed almost to be studying her. His talent was an eidetic memory coupled with a retention that frightened. He even remembered his own birth.

“Why were we not allowed to go with the others?” he asked.

More heads nodded.

Savina swallowed before answering. “There is another path for all of you. Do you have your bags packed?”

They just stared. No answer was necessary. Of course their bags were packed. The question displayed the level of her own nervousness. Before her lay the power that would fuel the Motherland into a new era. And deep down, Savina knew such a power remained beyond her full comprehension.

“We will be leaving in an hour,” Savina said.

Those ten pairs of blue eyes stared back at her.

Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned as one of the technicians joined her.

“General-Major,” he said, “we’re having some glitch with the blast doors on the other side of the tunnel. If you could advise us how to proceed.”

She nodded, glad to focus her mind upon a problem.

She followed the technician back to the staircase. Still, she felt those ten pairs of eyes tracking her, cold and dispassionate, icy in their regard. To escape their judgment, she hurried down the stairs.

“Open the doors!” Monk called to Konstantin.

From inside the control station, the boy nodded. Electric motors sounded, and large steel gears began rolling the blast doors out of the way, splitting down the middle.

Konstantin came running over to him, out of breath. “Five minutes,” the boy warned.

Monk understood. Konstantin had sent the tunnel’s digital camera system into a diagnostic shutdown and reboot. The clever kid had engineered a five-minute blackout. They had that long to evacuate the children from the train before the cameras were back online.

There was little else he could do. The master control station lay at the other end of the tunnel. Once the subterfuge was detected, the other station would kill the power to Konstantin’s shack.

They had only this one shot.

As the doors parted, Monk squeezed through, followed by Konstantin. Marta also loped after them. The old chimpanzee wheezed with exhaustion, but she didn’t slow, even passing Monk.

The old girl knew they had to hurry.

A hundred yards away, the train rested on the tracks.

Monk ran toward it, hopping a bit on his wounded leg. Konstantin called out in Russian, yelling at them to get off the train and out the blast door. The boy waved both his arms.

“Just clear the train,” Monk said. “I must get moving as quickly as possible.”

Monk jangled alongside the train as he ran. He carried two assault rifles over his shoulders, each with sixty-round magazines. Konstantin had already given him a lesson on the manual drive mechanism for the train. It wasn’t much.

Get in the front cab, shove the lever up.

Reaching the train, Monk trotted along one side, Konstantin along the other. “Everyone off the train!” Monk shouted. “Out the doors!”

Konstantin echoed his orders in Russian.

Still, chaos ruled for a full half minute. Children yelled or cried. Hands grabbed at him, milling and jostling. But the kids were also well trained to follow orders. Slowly the tide shifted, and the children began to drift down the tunnel toward the doors.

No longer crowded underfoot, Monk reached the last car, a covered cab. He leaped through the open door and went to the front end. A small driver’s seat was flanked by a green and red stick. Green for go. Red for the brakes. A small dashboard displayed gauges and voltage readings.

Monk did not have time for finesse. He leaned out the window. “Konstantin!”

The boy’s voice echoed to him. “Clear! Go!”

Good enough.

Monk shoved the green lever forward. Electricity popped, casting a few sparks into the darkness ahead. The train lurched forward, then began to roll off down the tunnel.

Four minutes.

He had to get this train to the other end of the tunnel before the camera system rebooted. It was up to Konstantin to herd the children out of the tunnel and close the blast doors. Monk had instructed the boy how to jam the gears so that the doors would remain closed.

Konstantin also had one other task.

Monk had confiscated a pair of the miners’ radios. Once Monk reached the far doors, he would signal Konstantin to open them. If all went according to plan, Monk would have the advantage of surprise—and two fully loaded assault rifles. While likely a suicide mission, what choice did he have? The children were safe for the moment, but if Operation Saturn succeeded, how many millions more would die? Monk had no choice but to storm the master control station, guns blazing.

Initially, he had considered sabotaging the mine site, but Konstantin had paled at that suggestion. The charges—fifty of them—were primed with radio detonators. Even if he could scale the half kilometer of shaft in four minutes to reach them, any mishandling of the explosives risked setting them off.

So the matter was settled.

With a rattle of wheels, the train sailed down the dark tunnel, lit by occasional bare bulbs. The front cab also had a single headlamp, which cast a glow ahead of him. As the train trundled faster and faster, Monk noted kilometer markers on the wall. According to Konstantin, the tunnel ran four kilometers long.

Monk found himself holding his breath, counting off a full minute in his head. Along the right side, he saw the number 2 stenciled into the wall.

Halfway there.

At best, he would have less than thirty seconds to spare.

Not great, but not bad.

Then the lights went out, as if the hand of God had clapped.

Under Monk, the train sighed, as if echoing his despair. Without electricity, the train rolled to a stop in the pitch darkness.

Behind him, from the back of the train, a child screamed in raw terror. Monk’s body clenched. He knew that voice.

Pyotr.

Savina stared at the bank of darkened monitors in the control station. She shook her head. Minutes before, one of the technicians had summoned her down here, worried about a glitch in the system, something to do with the blast doors at the far end of the tunnel. By the time she’d got down here, the cameras were off-line, running a diagnostic subroutine.

No one had ordered it.

Suspicions hardened her veins. Something was wrong. Rather than sit idle, she took a preemptive move and cut all power to the tunnel.

“M.C. three thirty-seven,” Savina said. “There’s a substation over at the mining complex.”

One of the technicians, an electrical engineer, nodded to her.

“And as I recall, there’s a camera built into the control shack over there. To allow you to communicate with technicians on the other side.”

The man nodded again—then his eyes widened. “It’s on a system independent from the tunnel.”

It was a precaution engineered in case of breakdowns like now, leaving the two stations still able to communicate.

“Bring up that camera.” She tapped one of the monitors.

The engineer typed rapidly at his computer. A few moments later, the screen snapped to life in grainy black-and-white. The camera was small and utilitarian, angled above the control board of the shack to give a good view of the operator on that side.

Savina leaned closer. Out the shack’s open door, the camera caught a milling of children in the cavern beyond. Many children. The ones who had boarded the train.

Savina struggled to comprehend, when a taller boy stepped into view of the camera. He was tall, dark-haired, with a long, angular face. Her fingers tightened. She knew that boy.

Konstantin.

What was going on?

With all that had happened this morning, she’d had no time to follow up on Lieutenant Borsakov’s hunt for the American and the three children. She watched Konstantin wave an arm and call silently to the crowd of children. Borsakov had obviously failed.

But what were they doing over there?

She searched the crowd, looking for the American and the other two children. She sought one child in particular, the one she wanted back.

Pyotr screamed as the blackness smothered him. His eyelids stretched wide searching for any light, Marta held him in her strong arms. The two had used the confusion at the other end of the tunnel to sneak aboard the last car and hide.

Pyotr knew he had to stay with the man.

But the darkness…

Pyotr gasped, drowning in the black sea. He rocked and rocked while Marta tried to hold him. It was his nightmare come true. He’d had the same dream often: where his shadow rose up and consumed him, smothered him until there was only darkness. The only way to defend against it was to set himself on fire, to burn like a torch against that darkness—then he would wake screaming.

Other children said they saw him on fire in their own dreams. At first he thought they were making fun of him, but after the first few times, they all started looking strangely at him, seldom talked to him, rarely played with him. Teachers grew angry, too. They scolded, didn’t let him have sweetcakes with honey, said he upset the other children to the point that no one did well on their tests for days afterward. They blamed him for scaring everyone.

And it scared him, too, down to the bones—and that was only a dream. This darkness now was no dream.

Panicked, he strained to escape it, but it was everywhere. He sought light where there was none. Even that path terrified him, but it was better than the smothering inkiness.

Out of the darkness, pinpricks of light appeared like fiery needles punched through black cloth, willed into being by his terror. Just a few, then more and more. He stared upward as the starry landscape spread and pushed back the darkness.

But he knew the truth. These were no stars.

As Pyotr strained, his heart fluttered like a trapped bird. He stared upward as the stars grew brighter, swelling larger as they fell closer. He knew he should turn away. But his eyes opened wider…as did the darkness inside him. It also sought the light, howling out of the dark pit, needing to be fed.

Stars began to fall faster and faster, a few at first, then others followed. From all directions, they swept down upon him, crashing toward him.

He heard the cries and felt the hammering hearts. They filled him with their light. He fell backward as the night sky collapsed upon him and lit his core on fire.

Distantly, he heard a simian howl of warning.

Because Marta knew his secret.

In those waking moments after his nightmares, when he woke screaming, it wasn’t just fear—it was also exhilaration.

Something was dreadfully wrong with the children.

After cutting the power, Savina had continued to study the camera feed from M.C. 337. Though she had no audio, it was plain the children remained agitated, milling in confusion, some crying, most walking or standing shell-shocked. The only one who appeared in control was Konstantin. He moved among them, appearing into view, then disappearing again.

Savina kept a watch to see if Pyotr was among them.

Though she had ten Omega subjects, if the boy was there—

Then one of the children in view dropped to the floor. A neighboring child turned to the slumped child, then she also fell, as if clubbed. More and more children collapsed. Panicked, one boy ran past—then he, too, succumbed.

The technical engineer also noted the same. “Is it the neurotoxin?”

Savina stared, unsure. The radiosensitive compound was inert unless exposed to high doses of radiation. The readings at M.C. 337 had never been that high. A moment later, Konstantin reappeared. He carried a limp girl in his arms. It was his sister Kiska. He turned straight at the camera. His eyes full of terror.

Then Savina saw it—like a light snapped off in his eyes. The fear vanished to a dullness and down he went.

It wasn’t the neurotoxin.

Konstantin and Kiska hadn’t consumed the medication.

A thump sounded from overhead. Then another and another.

Savina stared up.

Oh, no…

Turning, she ran for the stairs. She flew up them two at a time. Her back cramped, and her heart pounded with a lance of pain. She burst into the room where the ten children had been waiting for her.

They had all collapsed, in chairs, on the floor, heads lolling, limbs slack. She rushed to Boris, knelt beside him, and checked the pulse at his throat. She felt a weak beat under her fingertips.

Still alive.

She rolled him over and lifted his eyelids, which hung at half-mast. The boy’s pupils were dilated wide and nonresponsive to light.

She climbed back to her feet and stared around the room.

What was happening?

Chapter 20

September 7, 2:17 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter hurried down the hall. He didn’t need any more trouble, but he got it.

The entire command bunker was in lockdown mode after the attack. As he had suspected, after the fiery death of Mapplethorpe, the few remaining combatants ghosted away into the night. Painter was determined to find each and every one of them, along with every root and branch that supplied Mapplethorpe with the resources and intelligence to pull off this attack.

In the meantime, Painter had to regain order here.

He had a skeleton team pulled back inside. The injured had been transported to local hospitals. The dead remained where they were. He didn’t want anything disturbed until he could bring in his own forensic team. It was a grim tour of duty here this evening. Though Painter had employed the air scrubbers and ventilation to clear the accelerant, it did nothing to erase the odor of charred flesh.

And on top of resecuring the facility here, he was fielding nonstop calls from every branch of the intelligence agency: both about what had happened here and about the aborted terrorist act at Chernobyl. Painter stonewalled about most of it. He didn’t have time for debriefings or to play the political game of who had the bigger dick. The only brief call he took was from a grateful president. Painter used that gratitude to buy him the latitude to put off everyone else.

Another attack threatened.

That was the top priority.

And as the latest problem was tied to that matter, he gave it his full and immediate attention. Reaching the medical level, he crossed to one of the private rooms. He entered and found Kat and Lisa flanking a bed.

Sasha lay atop it as Lisa repositioned an EEG lead to the child’s temple.

“She’s sick again?” Painter asked.

“Something new,” Lisa answered. “She’s not febrile like before.”

Kat stood with her arms crossed. Lines of worry etched her forehead. “I was reading to her, trying to get her to sleep after everything that had happened. She was listening. Then suddenly she sat up, turned to an empty corner of the room, called out the name Pyotr, then went limp and collapsed.”

“Pyotr? Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yuri mentioned Sasha had a twin brother named Pyotr. It must have been a hallucination.”

While they talked, Lisa had retreated to a bank of equipment and began powering them up. Sasha was wired to both an EKG and EEG, monitoring cardiac and neurological activity.

“Is her device active?” Painter asked, nodding to Sasha’s TMS unit.

“No,” Lisa answered. “Malcolm checked. He’s already come and gone. Off to make some calls. But something’s sure active. Her EEG readings are showing massive spiking over the lateral convexity of the temporal lobe. Specifically on the right side, where her implant is located. It’s almost as if she’s having a temporal lobe seizure. Contrarily her heart rate is low and her blood pressure dropped to her extremities. It’s as if all her body’s resources are servicing the one organ.”

“Her brain,” Painter said.

“Exactly. Everything else is in shutdown mode.”

“But to what end?”

Lisa shook her head. “I have no idea. I’m going to run some more tests, but if she doesn’t respond, I can think of only one possible solution.”

“What’s that?” Kat asked.

“Though the TMS implant is not active, the spiking EEGs are centered around it. I can’t help but believe those neuro-electrodes are contributing to what’s happening to her. Her electrical activity is frighteningly high in that region—as if those wires in her brain are acting like lightning rods. If I can’t calm her neural activity, she may burn herself out.”

Kat paled at her assessment. “You mentioned a solution.”

Lisa sighed, not looking happy. “We may need to remove her implant. That’s where Malcolm went, to make some calls to a neurosurgeon at George Washington.”

Painter crossed and put an arm around Kat’s shoulders. He knew how attached she had become to the child. They had lost many lives protecting her. To lose her now…

“We’ll do everything we can,” Painter promised her.

Kat nodded.

Painter’s beeper buzzed on his belt. He slipped his arm free and checked the number. The Russian embassy. That was one call he had to take. Gray should be landing at Chelyabinsk in another few minutes.

As he glanced back up, Lisa waved him away with a small tired smile. “I’ll call you if there’s any change.”

He headed for the door—then a sudden thought intruded, something he had set aside and not yet addressed. He frowned questioningly over to Kat.

“Earlier,” he said, “I don’t know if I heard you correctly.”

Kat looked at him.

“What did you mean when you said Monk was still alive?”

12:20 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Monk sidled along the train in the pitch dark. He ran his stumped forearm along the cabs as he moved down the tracks. He stretched and waved his other hand in front of him. Stumbling over railroad ties and larger stones in the gravel, he worked his way from the front of the train toward the back.

A moment before, as Monk had stepped out of the train, Pyotr had stopped screaming. It had cut off abruptly. The silence was even worse, creating a stillness as complete as the darkness. Monk’s heart pounded.

Reaching the next ore car, he hiked up over the edge and waved his arm into the open space. “Pyotr?”

His voice sounded exceptionally loud, echoing down the tunnel. But he didn’t know where the boy was or even if he was still on the train. The only option was to work methodically backward.

Monk hopped back down and moved toward the next car. He stretched his right arm out again, sweeping ahead of him—

—then something grabbed his hand.

Monk yelped in surprise. Warm leathery fingers wrapped around his. He reflexively yanked his arm back, but the fingers held firm. A soft hoot accompanied the grip.

“Marta!” Monk dropped and gave her a fumbling hug in the dark.

She returned it, nudging her cheek against his, and gave a soft chuff of relief. Her entire body trembled. He felt the pounding of her heart against his chest. She broke the embrace but kept hold of his hand. She urged him to follow with a gentle tug.

Monk gained his feet and allowed her to guide him. He knew where she was taking him. To Pyotr. Moving more swiftly, Monk reached the last cab. Unlike the open ore cars in the middle, the last cab was enclosed.

Marta hopped through an open door.

Monk climbed in after her. The old chimpanzee shuffled and herded him to a back corner. He found Pyotr on the floor, flat out on his back.

Monk’s hand patted over him, defining his shape out of the darkness. “Pyotr?”

There was no response.

He felt the boy’s chest rise and fall. Fingers checked his small face. Was he injured? Had he taken a fall? His skin was feverish to the touch. Then a tiny hand wandered like a lost bird and discovered Monk’s fingers—and gripped hard.

“Pyotr, thank God.” Monk scooped him up and sat with the boy in his lap. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Small arms wrapped around his neck. Monk felt the burn of the boy’s skin, even through his clothes.

Pyotr spoke, at his ear. “Go…”

Monk felt a chill pass through him. The tone sounded deeper than Pyotr’s normal tentative falsetto. Maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the boy’s raw fear. But Monk felt no tremble in his thin limbs. The single word had more command than plea.

Still, it was not a bad idea.

He stood and lifted the boy up. Pyotr seemed heavier, though Monk was past the edge of exhaustion into a bone-deep fatigue, near collapse. Marta helped guide him to the door. He jumped out and landed hard. With the boy in his arms, he hurried back toward the front of the train. He had brought one rifle with him, but he’d left the other in the front cab.

Reaching the car, Monk asked, “Can you—?”

Even before he finished the question, Pyotr clambered out of his arms and gained his own feet.

“Stay here.” Monk quickly climbed inside, grabbed the second rifle, and slung it over his shoulder.

He returned to Pyotr. The boy took his hand.

Monk expelled one hard breath. Which direction? The train had stopped halfway along the tunnel. They could either return to Konstantin and the other children or continue ahead. But if they had any hope of stopping this madwoman, Monk saw no advantage in going back.

Perhaps Pyotr thought the same thing. The boy set off in that direction. Toward Chelyabinsk 88.

With two rifles strapped to his back and a boy and chimpanzee in tow, Monk marched down the pitch-black tunnel. They had come full circle and headed back home. But what sort of welcome would they face?

The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry, General-Major. I don’t know what’s wrong with the children. They’ve never demonstrated this type of catatonia before.”

Savina stared across the room. A pair of nurses and two soldiers had helped spread the ten children on the floor, lined up like felled trees. They’d brought in pillows and blankets from the neighboring bedrooms. Two medical doctors had been summoned: Dr. Petrov specialized in neurology, and Dr. Rostropovich in bioengineering.

In a sheepskin-trimmed jacket, Petrov stood with his fists on his hips. The medical team had been in the process of evacuating when called over here. A large caravan of trucks and vehicles was already lined up for departure.

“I’ll need a full diagnostic suite to better understand what’s happening,” he said. “And we’ve already dismantled—”

“Yes. I know. We’ll have to wait until we reach the facility in Moscow. Can the children be transported safely?”

“I believe so.”

Savina stared hard at the doctor. She did not like his equivocation.

He nodded his head with more certainty. “They’re stable. We can move them.”

“Then make arrangements.”

“Yes, General-Major.”

Savina left further details to the medical staff and headed back down to the control bunker below. While dealing with the matter here, Savina had also been in contact with her resources in the Russian intelligence and military communities. The information gridlock at Chernobyl seemed to finally be loosening. Contradictory reports and rumors swirled around events at the ceremony: everything from a full nuclear meltdown to a foiled terrorist attack by Chechen rebels. The firming consensus was that there had definitely been a radiological leak, though the extent remained unclear.

And why had Nicolas remained silent?

The worry gnawed a ragged edge to her temper and patience.

And now the strangeness with the children.

Savina needed to clamp down on the chaos and focus on the matter at hand. No matter what the circumstances were at Chernobyl, Operation Saturn would proceed. Even if Nicolas had somehow failed, she would not. Her operation alone would unsettle the world economies, kill millions, and spread a radioactive swath halfway across the globe. It would be harder, but with the savant children still under their control, they would persevere.

With such a focus in mind, she cast aside the confusion and sought the cold dispassion of the resolute. She knew what she must do.

Reaching the bunker, she found the wall screens still dark, except for the grainy view of M.C. 337. She studied the spread of small bodies on the rocky floor. There was still no sign of movement over there.

She turned to the two technicians. “Why aren’t the other cameras back online?”

The chief engineer stood up. “The diagnostic reboot finished a few minutes ago. We were waiting on your orders to power systems back online.”

Savina sighed and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Did everyone have to be dragged by the nose? She motioned to the board. “Do it.”

Despite her desire to snap at the man, she kept her voice even. While she had ordered the shutdown, she had indeed left no standing order regarding the power situation.

To avoid any further misunderstanding, Savina pointed to the view of M.C. 337. “Keep the power cut off to the other substation. All except its camera.” She didn’t want any more surprises from that side.

As the two technicians set to work, lights flickered across the board, and the dark screens filled with images of the tunnel and the heart of her operation. Everything appeared fine—except for one glaring exception.

The train was no longer parked beside the mining site.

Savina pointed to the screens. “Bring up the cameras, sequentially down the tunnel. Find the train.”

Fingers punched keys at the master control, and snapshots of the tunnel flipped across the screen, dizzying her head. Then halfway down the passage, the train appeared. It sat idle on the tracks. Savina stepped closer to that monitor and studied the ore cars and cabs. She saw no movement. Someone could be hiding, but Savina didn’t think so.

“Continue down the tunnel,” she ordered.

More digital images flowed. She spotted movement on one.

“Stop!”

A single wall lamp lit this section of the dark tunnel. It lay about a quarter klick from the blast doors. As Savina watched, figures appeared out of the darkness, walking into the light from the deeper tunnel.

Savina’s fingers tightened on the edge of the control board.

It was the American…leading a child by the hand.

As they drew farther into the glow, Savina recognized the boy.

Pyotr.

Straightening, Savina glanced to the grainy image from M.C. 337. All the children remained collapsed. So why was this one boy still up and moving?

“General-Major?” the engineer asked.

Savina’s mind spun but failed to settle on any explanation. She shook her head. As if sensing the eyes upon them, the pair stopped in the light. The American looked behind him. His eyes narrowed with confusion.

As the power returned and pools of lights flickered into existence, Monk knew the cameras must also be online. Without much reason or ability to hide, Monk continued several steps, heading toward the nearest lamp. It was only then that he realized something was amiss.

Or rather missing.

He searched behind him. Marta was gone. He had thought she had been following him in the dark. She moved so silently. He stared back down the throat of the tunnel. He saw no sign of her. Had she remained back at the train? Monk even searched ahead, thinking maybe she had gone scouting in advance of them. But the tunnel ended in two hundred feet at a set of tall blast doors.

Marta was nowhere to be seen.

Speakers off by the doors spat with static, then a crisp voice spoke in English. “Keep moving forward! Bring the boy to the door if you wish to live.”

Monk remained frozen, unsure where to go from here.

12:35 P.M.
Kyshtym, Russia

Seated in an old farm truck, Gray led the caravan through the gates of the airstrip and out onto a two-lane road that headed off into the mountains. Walls of towering fir and spruce trees flanked the road, creating a handsome green corridor.

In the rearview mirror, Gray watched the small mountain town of Kyshtym recede and vanish into the dense forest. The town lay on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, only nine miles from their destination, Chelyabinsk 88. Like the entire area, the town was not without its own legacy of nuclear disaster and contamination. It lay downwind of another nuclear complex, designated Chelyabinsk 40, also known as Mayak, the Russian word meaning “beacon.” But Mayak was not a shining beacon to Russian nuclear safety. In 1957, a waste tank exploded due to improper cooling and cast eighty tons of radioactive material over the region, requiring the evacuation of hundreds of thousands. The Soviets had kept the accident a secret until 1980. As the road turned a bend, the town vanished, like so much of the Soviet Union’s nuclear history.

Continuing onward, Gray settled into his seat. The road crossed a bridge with guardrails painted fire-engine red. A warning. The bridge spanned a deep river that marked the former boundary of restricted territory. The road wound higher into the mountains.

Behind Gray trailed a dozen trucks of different makes and models, but all well worn and muddy. Gray shared the front seat with Luca and the driver, who were conversing in Romani. Luca pointed ahead and the driver nodded.

“Not far,” Luca said, turning to him. “They already sent up spotters to watch the entry road. They report lots of activity. Many cars and trucks heading down the mountain.”

Gray frowned at the news. It sounded like an evacuation. Were they already too late?

In the bed of the truck, four men lounged, half covered in blankets. Gray had been impressed with their arsenal hidden under the blankets: boxes of assault rifles, scores of handguns, even rocket-propelled grenades.

Luca had explained the lax control of such weaponry on the Russian black market. The small army, gathered from local Russian Gypsy clans, had met them in Kyshtym. They swelled the ranks of the men Luca had brought with them from the Ukraine. Gray had to hand it to Luca Hearn: if you needed to gather a fast militia, he was the Gypsy to call.

In the trucks behind them, Kowalski and Rosauro followed. They had left Elizabeth back at the jet, safely out of harm’s way, guarded by a trio of British S.A.S soldiers.

Everyone had to move swiftly. Speed was essential. The plan was to strike the underground facility, lock it down, and stop whatever was planned. The nature of Operation Saturn remained a mystery. However, considering it was in the heart of the former Soviet Union’s plutonium production facilities and uranium mines, it had to be radiological in nature.

Senator Nicolas Solokov’s words still haunted him.

Millions will still die.

Gray had learned the man was born about ninety miles from here, in the city of Yekaterinburg. This was the region the man represented in the Russian Federal Assembly, which meant he knew the area and its secrets. If someone wanted to plot a nuclear event, here would be a great place to do it.

But what was planned?

Back in Kyshtym, Elizabeth paced the length of the jet. Her arms were folded over her chest, her chin low in concentration. She was worried for the others, fearful after hearing what Gray and the others sought to stop.

Millions will die.

Such madness.

Anxiety kept her on her feet, for the team, for the fate of millions. She had a laptop open on a table. She had tried to work, to keep busy. She had begun downloading her digital pictures from her camera. Professor Masterson had kept her camera safe after she was kidnapped by the Russians. He had returned it to her following their escape from the jail in Pripyat.

On the screen, the photos scrolled as they downloaded into the laptop.

Pacing past, she caught a glimpse of the omphalos, resting at the center of the chakra wheel. Despite her worry, her heart still thrilled at the thought that the stone was the original Delphic artifact. For two decades, historians knew the smaller stone at the museum was a copy, the fate of the original a mystery. Some scholars hypothesized that perhaps some oracular cult had survived the temple’s destruction and that they’d stolen the stone for their secret temple.

Elizabeth drew back to the laptop. She stared at the omphalos. Here was that proof. She sank into the chair as a sudden realization struck her. She remembered what was carved inside the museum’s copy: a curving line of Sanskrit.

It was an ancient prayer to Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom and secret knowledge. No one knew who inscribed it there or why. But it was not unusual to see religious graffiti from one religion marking another.

Still, Elizabeth began to suspect the truth. Perhaps the copy of the omphalos had been left behind like a road marker. She scrolled through the images and came upon the photo of the wall mosaic, depicting a child and young woman hiding from a Roman soldier underneath the dome of the omphalos, where the Sanskrit poem was written. It read, “She who had no beginning, ending, or limit, may the Goddess Sarasvati protect her.” It could definitely be referring to the last Oracle, a prayer to protect her lineage. Lastly, the goddess Sarasvati herself made her home in a sacred river. Many religious scholars believed that this mythical river was the Indus River, where the exiled Greeks made their new home.

Elizabeth suspected that someone had left that secret message for others to follow. As she and her father had.

She brought up the image of the original omphalos again. She had taken several pictures, including the triple line carved upon the stone that warned of the trap—written in Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek. She brought up that image.

There had been another example of this triple writing on the chamber walls. Beneath the figure of the fiery-eyed boy. She brought that up, too. Beneath the mosaic, the line of Harappan was intact, but half of the Sanskrit and Greek and been worn away. Only a letter or two remained legible.

She read what she could. “‘The world will burn…’”

The line nagged, reminding her of what Gray and the others sought to prevent. She stared at the image of a boy rising in smoke and fire from the omphalos and felt a chill of concern. But what was the rest of the message? The only intact line was the one written in indecipherable Harappan. It was a challenging word puzzle.

Unless…

Elizabeth jolted upright and leaned closer, her earlier worries forgotten. She glanced between the two images on the screen. She began to understand what she was looking at. She had lines of Harappan translated into Greek and Sanskrit. Translated. She breathed harder. On the computer, she had the beginnings of a digital Rosetta stone for this lost language.

She returned back to the broken line of passage beneath the smoky boy. She studied it, compared, and pulled up pictures of the writing on the stairwell wall, too. She began to spot commonalities.

Could she translate it?

Sensing something important, she set to work.

12:45 P.M.

General-Major Savina Martov studied her adversary. She stared at the American on the screen. He remained stopped within the pool of light by the tunnel lamp. She lifted the microphone to her lips.

“Move to the doors now!” she barked sharply.

From the way he jumped at her words, the man had heard her. There was no problem with the speakers near the blast doors.

“General-Major,” the engineer said. “I have a priority call for you from the Arkhangelsk Missile Base.”

Savina tilted back and picked up the handset. One of her contacts was established at the base there. “Martov here.”

“General-Major, some disturbing intelligence is coming out of the Ukraine. It seems that Senator Nicolas Solokov is dead.”

Savina inhaled sharply. She kept any stronger reaction in check. Still, her throat tightened. Her contact did not know Nicolas was her son, only that he was intimate and supportive of her operations here.

The contact continued speaking. “Rumors are still swirling as to the details surrounding the events. Some say he was killed by terrorists, while others say he may have had a hand in the actions there. All that is certain is that he is dead. Cameras from inside the sealed Shelter show his body, along with his assistant. He was shot in the head. Radiation levels are still too high to safely remove his body, but measures are under way. I can’t say…”

The man’s words droned on, but Savina had stopped listening. Tears welled up in her eyes. She tilted her head back to keep them from spilling. As the man finished, Savina thanked him for the call and hung up.

She turned her back slightly from the technician and engineer.

Nicolas was dead.

Her only son.

Maybe a part of her had known this already. For the past hour, she had been unable to shake a pall of despair. Her breathing had grown heavier. Nicolas…

“General-Major?” the engineer asked softly.

His gentleness only angered her. She turned her attention to the screen. The American still hadn’t moved. As if her grief were oil, her frustration set flame to it. A fury built inside her. The American had been thwarting her all day, and now defied her.

No longer.

Tears dried in the heat of her vehemence.

Her son might be dead, but she had given birth to another child, to the dream that would rise out of the ashes here. Family blood was not the only way to leave behind a legacy. She would finish what had killed her son. She would find another figurehead to take his place. It might take longer, but it would be done. The world had stolen her son. But she had the power to strike back.

A fierceness entered her voice that made the engineer take a step back. “Enough!” She pointed to the two screens on the left. They depicted the heart of Operation Saturn. One displayed a view up the shaft toward the planted charges; the other centered on the iris set in the floor. “Initiate Saturn! On my mark!”

The engineer and technician swung to their stations. They tapped furiously.

Savina stared at the man on the screen. If he wouldn’t bring Pyotr to her, she would light a fire under the man. There would be no retreating, no escape.

“Green across the board,” the engineer said tersely. “Awaiting your mark.”

“Go!”

She took a deep breath and watched the two screens. One monitor flashed with light. She heard a distant muffled explosion. Rocks tumbled past the camera, followed by a surge of mud, smothering the view. On the other screen, the iris rolled open as a sluice of rock and mud washed down atop it with a heavy wallop. Moments later, black water flowed from above, gushing in a solid column. The engineers’ calculations proved perfect. The arc of the water sluiced straight down the open maw of the iris.

It had begun.

The world had killed her son. But her brainchild would live. Though she had initiated the operation with a fury that was equal parts hope and retribution, she could not deny a dark vein in her steel. As the water flowed, she knew she would have her revenge on the world for what it had stolen from her today.

She turned her attention to the American.

Once whetted, her vengeance sought a new target.

She was not done.

Monk picked himself off the ground. The explosion still rang in his head. Trapped in the enclosed space, the concussive force had slammed against his ears like the clap of giant hands. He had covered Pyotr with his own body.

As his head continued to ring, he helped the boy to his feet. Distantly a heavy roaring echoed from the dark tunnel behind him, sounding like the growl of some great dragon. But Monk knew what he was hearing.

The rush of water.

Tons of water.

He also knew what it all meant—the explosion, the subterranean waterfall—it meant he had failed. Operation Saturn was under way, dumping a toxic slurry into the heart of the world.

The loudspeaker squawked again by the blast doors.

“Drop your weapons!” the woman said with a mix of ice and fire, cold determination laced with anger. “Bring the boy to the door. And I suggest you move quickly. The radiation levels are rising rapidly. You have less than five minutes before you absorb a lethal dosage.”

Monk had no choice. He shrugged off the rifles and let them clatter to the tracks. Pyotr reached over and grabbed the sleeve of his stumped arm.

Together they hurried the last couple hundred yards, racing as radiation rose in the tunnel. Ahead, the blast doors slowly parted, revealing a line of five soldiers with rifles leveled.

Their welcoming committee.

Pyotr urged him faster, as if the boy knew something Monk did not.

Monk’s wounded leg lanced an agonizing spike with every step. His chest tightened. His breathing wheezed. He stared down toward his waist. He still wore his dosimeter badge. It flapped with each step. Monk could see the surface. It showed crimson, but with each passing yard, it grew a shade darker.

Despite his leg, he sped faster.

Monk and Pyotr sprinted for the doors.

As they neared the exit, a massive blast shattered like thunder, coming from out in the cavern of Chelyabinsk 88. Monk’s steps stuttered in surprise, but Pyotr tugged him onward.

The guards, equally startled, twisted around. One dropped flat in fear.

Pyotr aimed for the gap. Hitting the line, the boy leaped over the soldier’s prone form. His other hand darted and snatched a sidearm from the holster of a neighboring soldier. The boy swung and slapped the weapon into Monk’s one hand.

There was no fumbling. It had hit his palm perfectly. Monk swung out his arm. From point-blank range, he fired into the line, using a reflexive skill buried deeper than his erased memory.

He emptied the entire clip, dropping all five men.

Monk tossed the pistol aside. Pyotr dashed forward and grabbed another. He passed it to Monk, snatched his sleeve again, and they were off.

All around the cavern, more explosions rocked. Men screamed and smoke poured from several of the abandoned apartment buildings. As he ran, he spotted the screaming passage of a rocket-propelled mortar or grenade. It slammed into another of the buildings. Concrete and glass exploded outward, showering the soldiers below.

The base was under attack.

But by whom?

Gray raced the truck down the concrete ramp and through the massive doors. On the plane ride here, he had read about these complexes, these cities underground. The Soviets used to bring in orchestras and bands to play for the workers, filling subterranean amphitheaters. Still, Gray was not ready for the sheer size of the place.

Nor the chaos.

Six trucks had led the initial assault.

To soften them up, Luca had said.

Gray couldn’t argue. This was Luca’s army, not his.

He had one mission.

Gray shot through a wall of smoke. He saw rocket fire slamming into the five-story apartment buildings, collapsing entire sections. Luca was in the bed of the truck, braced with a rocket on his shoulder. Two trucks flanked to either side. Kowalski drove one, Rosauro the other.

After their trucks passed through the mouth of the tunnel, the Gypsies closed off the exit road behind them, blocking the way with a pair of logging trucks, heavy with timber. Two dozen men manned the barricade and kept anyone from leaving.

Gray was impressed by the Gypsies’ attack strategy—both now and moments before.

On the way up here from the airport, all the vehicles in the region appeared to be just ordinary rural traffic, wandering the mountainside roads and dirt tracks. Then, upon a coordinated signal, the entire peaceful-looking countryside rose and turned upon the mountain in a synchronized assault. Rifles bristled out of bunkers built into the centers of hay trucks. Horses broke away from wagons with riders bearing shotguns, covering steeper terrain swiftly. Motorcycles rocketed out of the back of paneled milk trucks and shot up the side roads. The sudden transformation locked the mountainside down in a matter of minutes.

The Russians who had already left the subterranean compound were waylaid on the road, driven into ditches, stripped of weapons, and tied up. By the time Gray reached the mountain entrance, the advance assault team was already barreling into the throat of the tunnel, leaving a trail of smoke and fire for him to follow.

Gray hadn’t hesitated. They had no time to spare. Operation Saturn had to be found and stopped.

And Luca’s men assisted there, too. Like any good army, the Gypsies had gathered intelligence in advance of an attack. On the way up here, a man in a black ankle-length duster had stood in the middle of the road and waved Luca’s truck to stop. Two men in laboratory coats knelt in the roadside ditch, hands behind their backs, rifles held at their heads. The Gypsies hadn’t been gentle. Then again, it was the Russians who had slaughtered their mountaintop village and kidnapped their children.

The Russians had started this war; the Gypsies intended to finish it.

The interrogator passed Luca a hand-drawn map, splattered with blood. Luca handed it off to Gray. It was a crude schematic of Chelyabinsk 88, including a circle around the control station for Operation Saturn, located in a subbasement bunker beneath one of the cavern’s apartment structures.

With the goal known, Gray careened the truck down the curving road toward the ongoing siege at the high-rise complex. The initial attack, while dramatic and surprising, had also clogged the road with rubble. One entire building had fallen across the central roadway.

Gypsies in trucks continued to mount a fiery barrage.

Others abandoned their vehicles and prepared for a ground offensive.

Gray skidded his truck to where the men gathered and rolled out. Kowalski and Rosauro joined him. Hopping out of the truck bed, Luca called out in Romani. Men responded. After a few exchanges, Luca turned to Gray and hunkered down with him behind one of the trucks.

“The Russians have taken to the buildings, defending more fiercely the deeper you go.”

Gray knew why. “They’ve pulled their forces back to defend the control station. If they’ve not already initiated Saturn, they will soon. We can’t wait.”

Luca held up a restraining hand and glanced back toward the gathered ground troops. “I have a man…ah, here he is.”

A small figure ran low over to them. He wore cement-gray clothes and a black cap. The two Romani men spoke quickly.

“This is Rat,” Luca introduced the newcomer.

“Nice name,” Kowalski mumbled.

“He’s a scout. Skilled at finding paths no one would think to guard. He may know a way, but it’ll have to be a small party. No more than five or six.” Luca looked around at their small group. “Perhaps just us. Va?”

“Va,” Kowalski agreed, then glanced to Gray for confirmation.

“The other men will keep the Russians busy,” Luca added, waving to the ground forces and trucks.

“We go then?” Rat asked in stilted English.

“Va,” Gray answered, earning a grin from the man and a clap on his knee.

They readied their weapons—rifles and sidearms—and followed the small man toward a pile of rubble. Gray could see no way through. Luca motioned to the ground forces as they passed. A sharp warbling whistle spread across the smoky cavern.

Rat waved their small team under a tilted section of wall. Gray ducked and found it led to a basement window of the closest apartment building.

As they slowly continued into the scout’s maze, Gray heard a shout rise behind him.

“Opre Roma!”

Like a flame set to dry grass, the clarion call spread.

Gunfire and rocket blasts intensified.

Continuing onward, Gray prayed they weren’t too late.

Savina moved swiftly down the stairs and into the bunker. She ignored the twinges from her back, the shooting pains down her legs, and her pounding heart. At the first sound of attack, she had the blast doors to the tunnel sealed and locked.

Above, waiting for her, a group of the five strongest soldiers had been summoned by Dr. Petrov. The plan was to abscond with five children, carried on the backs of the soldiers. No more. She could not take all ten. Their best chance to escape was to move quickly and efficiently. The American prisoner had given her the idea. He and the children had fled out a back service tunnel. They would do the same.

But Savina had one last measure to address.

She entered the bunker and found the technician and engineer tearing out keyboards. They had already used magnetic wands to wipe the hard drives. The damage to the controls would guarantee that nothing would interfere with the progress of Operation Saturn.

“Is everything locked down?”

The engineer nodded his head vigorously. “It would take an electrical genius weeks to repair it.”

“Very good.” She lifted her pistol and shot the engineer through the forehead. The technician tried to run, but Savina swung her arm and dropped him at the foot of the stairs, pierced through the neck. He writhed, choking on his own blood.

She could not risk these two being caught. What they dismantled, they might be forced to fix at gunpoint.

She could not let that happen.

To satisfy herself even further, Savina grabbed a fire ax from the back wall and crossed to the boards. Lifting it high, she smashed both computers and electronics boards. Afterward, she rested the ax on the floor and leaned on its handle. She stared at the row of LCD screens. They still displayed views from various cameras. She considered smashing the monitors, too, but with her back in full spasm, she didn’t know if she could lift the ax again.

And in the end, what did it matter?

She shoved the ax to the floor and stared at the centermost screen. Water poured in a toxic black stream.

Let them see what she had wrought.

She smiled, enjoying this one last act of cruelty, then turned and headed for the stairs.

Let them watch the world die.

No one could stop her.

Chapter 21

September 7, 1:03 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

Pyotr led the man by his shirtsleeve. They ran through chaos. Soldiers screamed, glass shattered, rifles blasted, flames writhed, and smoke choked. But it wasn’t chaos to Pyotr.

He tugged Monk into a sheltering dark doorway as a soldier rounded a corner ahead, searched, then moved on. Pyotr hurried the man down a hall, up some stairs, out a window, and over a pile of rubble to the next building.

“Pyotr, where are we going?”

He didn’t answer, couldn’t answer.

Reaching another hall, Pyotr stopped. In his head, he stretched outward along a thousand possibilities. Hearts glowed like small pyres, flickering with fear, anger, panic, cowardice, malice. He understood how each would move even before they did. It was his talent, only so much more now.

For he had a secret.

Over the past years, as he woke screaming from his nightmare, waking other children with visions of bodies on fire, there was a reason his other classmates performed so poorly on their tests afterward. The teachers believed it was just because Pyotr had scared them, but they were wrong. Pyotr’s talent was to read hearts. They called it empathy. But he had a secret, something he only talked to Marta about.

Something he knew from his dreams.

He could do more than read hearts—he could also steal them. It wasn’t fear that made the other children perform poorly; they had something drawn from them. For just a few minutes after waking, Pyotr could do anything. He could multiply big numbers, like Konstantin; he could tell a person was lying by listening to how they talked, like Elena; he could see to hidden places, like his sister; and so much more. It filled him until he burned.

He pictured the stars falling into him, screaming, feeding the emptiness inside him. In his dreams, he had always woken before he consumed them fully. Not today. Pyotr walked through a dream from which he could never wake. He knew he had crossed a line, but he also knew he had no choice. He was always meant to burn.

Pyotr stared out at the chaos with a fiery gaze that was not his alone. Through a hundred eyes, he teased a pattern out of the chaos. Though he could not see the future—or at least no more than a few seconds—his ears took in every noise, his eyes interpreted every flicker of flame or shift of shadow, his heart read deep into what drove a man to choose to step here or there, to take that corner or not, to shoot or run. And with a shadow of his sister’s ability, his senses extended a few yards beyond even that.

And out of that chaos, a path took form.

One he could follow.

Pyotr crossed out into the hallway, guiding Monk behind him.

He pointed to the left—and Monk shot the soldier who stepped into view a second later. The man was learning to trust Pyotr’s instinct. To move with him, to fire upon command, growing into an extension of Pyotr.

Together, they crossed through the pattern.

Moving through pure instinct.

And that’s what Pyotr was now: instinct fired by a hundred talents.

He understood fully. Instinct was merely the brain’s unconscious interpretation of millions of subtle changes in the environment, both at the moment and leading up to it. The brain took all that chaotic information, saw a pattern, and the body reacted to it. It seemed magical, but it was only biological.

Pyotr did the same now—only a hundredfold more powerfully.

He extended his senses, reading hearts, motivations, trajectories, distances, noises, voices, directions, cadences, smoke, heat…and on and on. The million details filled him and sifted through the hundred minds he shared. From out of that chaos, patterns opened, and he knew each step to take.

“Where are we going?” Monk asked again.

Where you need to be, Pyotr answered silently.

Pyotr led him down the stairs again, then pulled the man to the floor as a shot fired overhead. From there, they crawled under a row of steel desks as soldiers searched, then down another set of stairs to a long basement hall with branches into a maze of rooms and other passageways.

Pyotr hurried.

While he saw a pattern, he could not truly see the future. He danced faster along the threads of pure instinct, sensing the pressure of ages upon him. They were running out of time.

The man grew more distressed, perhaps sensing the same.

“Where are you—?”

A new voice intruded, coming from the end of the hall, pitched full of surprise. Pyotr read the pound in the newcomer’s heart. A name was called out with a ring of disbelief.

“Monk!”

Gray almost shot him. Rounding into the hall, Gray had found two figures running straight at him, one with a weapon pointed ahead. If not for the presence of the boy, Gray would have shot on instinct.

Instead, he momentarily froze between recognition and shock.

His friend did not. The pistol fired. Gray felt a kick to his shoulder, throwing him back. Pain lanced outward.

Kowalski caught him as he fell and barked as loud as the crack of the pistol shot. “Monk, you ass! What are you doing?”

Monk halted, tugged to a stop by the boy. His face collapsed into a wary mask of confusion. “Who…who are you people?”

Kowalski still fumed. “Who are we? We’re your goddamn friends!”

Gray gained his feet, his left shoulder blazing with fire. “Monk, don’t you recognize us?”

Monk fingered a red and swollen line of sutures behind his ears. “No…actually I don’t.”

Gray stumbled over to him, his mind dizzy with questions, with the impossibility of it all. Was it amnesia or had they done something to him? How could Monk be here? Gray didn’t care. He gave his friend a bear hug, earning a fiery complaint from his shoulder. Just a graze, but he would’ve taken a gut shot to have this man back in his life. He clutched even tighter.

“I knew it…I knew it…,” Gray whispered fiercely. Tears welled and rolled. “God, you’re alive.”

Kowalski grumbled, “He won’t be alive much longer if we don’t get moving.”

The man was right. Gray let Monk go, but he kept one hand on his friend’s elbow, to make sure he didn’t disappear again.

Monk looked across the lot of them. “Listen,” he said and pointed outward. “I could use your help. There’s something I have to stop.”

“Operation Saturn,” Gray said.

Monk did a double take in Gray’s direction, then nodded. “That’s right. This boy can—”

Monk suddenly twirled around. “Where’s Pyotr?”

Gray understood his confusion.

The boy had vanished during the chaos.

1:15 P.M.
Kyshtym, Russia

Elizabeth studied the image on the computer screen. It displayed the wall mosaic from the temple in India. Five figures sat on tripod chairs surrounding the central omphalos. From the hole in the stone, smoke swirled upward like a steaming volcano. A fiery boy rose above it, half buried in a column of the smoke.

But it wasn’t just the smoke that lifted him.

At her elbow, Elizabeth had papers covered with scribbled lines of Harappan, Sanskrit, and Greek. She had images of the inscriptions on the wall and omphalos. She was not entirely certain of her translation.

The world will burn…

She studied the mosaic closer. Five women slouched in their chairs, as if in a trance, but each held one arm raised toward the smoky boy. Her first thought was that it represented a conjuring of the boy or summoning of him. But now she knew better. They weren’t conjuring him, they were supporting him.

She glanced to the line she had freshly translated in full.

The world will burn…unless the many become one.

It was a warning. The mosaic foretold what must come to pass or the world would be destroyed in some great fire. Elizabeth remembered Gray’s concern that whatever operation was at work in these mountains would kill millions and most likely involved a nuclear or radiological event.

She pictured a mushroom cloud, burning and smoking with hellfire.

It was not unlike the billowing smoke from the mosaic.

…unless the many become one.

She scrolled down to the bottom of the image, below the newly translated warning. She touched a finger to what lay there.

A chakra wheel.

Her fingertip traced a petal to the center. The chakra wheel represented the same warning. The numerous petals all led to one center.

The many become one.

She stared again at the five women, lifting a boy high.

Certainty grew in her—not only about the accuracy of her translation, but also about its importance. Elizabeth’s body trembled with dread. She had to get word out to someone. She crossed to the satellite phone Gray had left her. He had instructed her to call Director Crowe if there were any problems.

Still, she hesitated. What if she was wrong? What if she caused more of a mess? She considered keeping silent. But she remembered her father, and all his secrets. Of Masterson and his. She was done with secrets and half-truths, of words not spoken.

No more.

She would not be her father.

Knowing her discovery was important, she raised the handset and tapped in the number Gray had left.

3:18 A.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter watched as the child was prepped for the operation. He stood with Kat Bryant in a neighboring observation room off Sigma’s small surgical suite. Sterile-wrapped equipment waited to be employed for the delicate operation: ultrasonic aspirators, laser scalpels, stereotactic localizers. Trays of steel tools and drills with various burrs lined tables. Inside the room, Lisa, Malcolm, and a neurosurgical team from George Washington University Hospital continued the final preparations.

In the middle, Sasha lay under a thin surgical drape. All that was visible was the side of her head, shaved, coated in orange antiseptic, and trapped in a rigid frame attached to a scanning device. In the center of the surgical field, her steel implant reflected the lights.

Kat, pale and worried, stood with one hand on the window.

Over the course of the past hour, a series of EEG results and CT scans had shown progressive brain damage in the child. Whatever was happening to Sasha, it was slowly burning out her brain. It was decided, while the child was still strong, to remove the implant. It seemed to be the focus around which the storm of neurological hyperactivity centered.

Lisa had used the term “lightning rod.”

The only way to save her was to remove it. The neurosurgeon had studied all the scans and X-rays. He believed the device could be removed safely. It would be a delicate procedure, but not beyond his abilities.

That had been the first good news all night.

Painter’s phone jangled in his pocket. He considered not answering it, but he tugged it out and checked the I.D. From Kyshtym, Russia. He turned his back on the window, flipped open the phone, and answered it.

“Painter Crowe here.”

“Director,” a woman spoke, sounding greatly relieved. It was Elizabeth Polk. “Gray left this number.”

He heard the anxiety in her rushed voice. “What’s wrong, Elizabeth?”

“I’m not sure. Something I discovered, translated…anyway…”

Painter listened as she stated her case, her fears, what she believed was the message buried in an ancient mosaic.

“The oracles were all slumped in their chairs, unconscious, drugged, drained. Their sole reason for existing was to support the one who could save the world from destruction. I know this sounds crazy, but I think it’s connected to what’s going on today.”

As she talked, Painter had swung back to the window overlooking the surgical suite. Her words resonated through him. Slumped, unconscious, drugged…

Like Sasha’s collapse.

He remembered Kat reporting the girl called out her brother’s name just before she collapsed.

Their sole reason for existing was to support the one who could save the world from destruction.

Painter saw the surgeon lift his scalpel, ready to begin the operation.

No.

He bolted for the door.

Kat called to him. “What’s wrong?”

Painter had no time. He burst through the sterile prep area and into the operating room. “Stop! No one move!”

1:14 P.M.
Southern Ural Mountains

“General-Major, you should head downstairs to the bunker,” the soldier warned. He stood a head taller than her, thick with muscle. “We shall make a stand here.”

Another soldier dragged Dr. Petrov’s screaming form into the room from the hallway. His leg had been blown off at the knee. Blood poured. Other soldiers ran in with the children carried over their shoulders. The group had been chased back to the apartment by the collapse of the Russian forces, retreating before the guerrilla assault.

The large soldier pointed a beefy arm toward the stairwell. “Please, General-Major. We will hold off as long as we can.”

“The children…” Savina said, knowing her plan was crumbling around her. She could not let anyone else steal what she had started. “Shoot them all.”

The man’s eyes grew large, but he was a soldier.

He nodded.

Savina retreated down the stairs. She could not watch. Her legs stumbled under her as she reached the bottom of the stairs. The door to the room was four-inch steel. Barricaded inside, she would wait out the war above. Ahead, she noted the flicker of the screens beyond the doorway. In the center screen, water flooded poison into the earth. As she holed up here, she would take solace as she watched.

Gunfire erupted overhead.

The children…

Cringing, she headed for the room.

But a shape stepped into view in the open doorway, blocking her.

A boy.

Pyotr.

Pyotr stood in the doorway and stared up at the woman. She was darkness and shadow in the gloom of the stairwell. He did not truly see her, but he knew her. He focused on the flame of her heart, aglow at the foot of the stairs.

“Pyotr,” she called to him, with a shining note of hope in her voice.

As she stepped toward him, he lifted his arms and reached out—not with flesh but with his fiery spirit. He cupped the flame of her heart between his open palms, holding it like a frightened bird. Then he gently squeezed, smothering her flame.

The woman dropped to her knees with a cry, a fist clutched to her heart. “Pyotr, what are you—?”

Hope turned to terror as she screamed.

He was not done.

There was another facet to Pyotr’s talent of empathy. He could certainly sense others’ emotions, but with the force of a hundred behind him, he could do more.

As a hundred eyes stared out of his, he drew from the other children: all the agony of the scalpel, the ache of loneliness, the coldness of neglect, the pain of secret abuse at night. He reached farther back, to a blue-eyed child in a dark church, watching a woman and a man approach. He stole all that fear out of the past and thrust it like a dagger into her heart.

The woman shrieked, arched back, racked and locked in a pain without end.

Yet, likewise, as the dark emotions ran through Pyotr, the same fire grazed him. Hot tears flowed for all the lost innocence, including his own.

He barely registered the pistol as it lifted toward him.

The woman sought to blindly kill what tortured her.

While he did the same to her.

The pistol blast shattered the silence.

Pyotr fell back when the woman’s flame suddenly snuffed out between his palms. As he stumbled back, she fell to the floor, half her face gone. He stared up and saw Monk rushing down the stairs from above, his pistol smoking.

The man leaped over the woman and scooped him in his arms.

“Pyotr!”

Monk lifted the stiff boy. He ran his hand over his small frame. He seemed uninjured, though his skin burned to the touch. He hugged Pyotr to his chest.

The others ran down the stairs behind him.

A brief firefight had eliminated the defenders above. It had looked like the Russians had been about to fire upon a group of unconscious children.

If they’d been a half minute later…

The Gypsies remained above to secure the area and watch over the children. They were safe here for the moment.

“Is this the place?” Gray asked.

With the boy in his arms, Monk crossed with the others into the bunker. The control board smoked from deep gashes into the smoldering circuitry. Keyboards lay cracked. Glass crunched underfoot. Everything was shattered, except for a row of wall monitors.

Monk pointed to the center screen, recognizing the room. It was the heart of Operation Saturn. Only now, black water poured like a river out of a hole in the roof and swirled down a shaft in the floor.

“It’s already under way,” he said hollowly. “We’re too late.”

On a neighboring screen, Monk spotted the mining chamber where he’d left Konstantin and the others. The kids were sprawled in tangled piles. The view was too grainy to tell if they were still alive. Had the radiation somehow reached them?

A well of despair swept through him.

As Gray fished out a sat-phone, Monk stared at the others: Kowalski and Rosauro. Monk sought any glimmer of recognition. There was none. Who were these people? If they were friends, shouldn’t they jar some reaction from him?

As he studied the others, Pyotr reached a hand toward the center screen and placed his palm on it.

“What’s he doing?” Gray asked with the phone at his ear.

Monk turned his attention. “Pyotr?”

The boy stared deeply at the image on the screen.

Kowalski spoke to the left. “Hey! The train’s moving over here!”

Monk glanced over. The train slowly shifted down the tracks, sparking with electricity. The tunnel must still have power, not that they had any control over it.

“Is the kid doing that?” Kowalski asked. “Moving it with his mind?”

Monk held his breath, then let it out slowly. “No,” he said and stared at the receding train, suddenly remembering. “There’s someone else out there.”

“Who?” Gray asked.

As Pyotr’s hand touched the screen, he cast his senses out into the tunnel, stretching to his limits. Fired by stolen talents, steel and concrete could not stop his reach. As voices faded behind him, he dove into the dark tunnel and swept toward the one flaming star that remained inside, a great heart, one he had loved all his young life.

Pyotr found her cowering in the train, rocking. She had hid out of sight of the cameras because he had asked it of her. She was part of the pattern. But for the moment, nothing mattered. He hurt, deeper than he’d ever been hurt. He simply needed her. Reaching her old heart, he cupped the flame gently and sent her all his love and his need.

She knew he was there and hooted gently, reaching to the empty air. In the dark tunnel, they wrapped around each other, sharing emotions at a level deeper than anyone else.

It was one of their secrets.

He had known the truth the moment they’d first touched hands. Pyotr knew the reason so many children loved Marta, came to her for comfort, to cry in her arms or to simply be held.

She had a talent, unknown to her keepers, a strong gift of empathy, like Pyotr. Two kindred spirits. So he kept her secret, and she kept his.

But it wasn’t their only secret.

There was a darker one, wrapped in terror, revealed in a way neither understood but both knew to be true. From the moment they first saw each other, they knew they would die together.

Gray watched the train accelerate down the tunnel toward the site of Operation Saturn. Monk had given him a thumbnail version of the purpose.

“But who’s in the train?” he asked. “Can we communicate with them?”

Monk held the boy as his small fingers were splayed on the screen. “I think Pyotr is already there. The boy knows how to operate the train.”

“But who’s on the train?”

“A friend.”

On the screen displaying the heart of Operation Saturn, the train pulled into view at the edge and braked. A dark shape hopped out of the front car and loped into the chamber.

“Is that a monkey?” Kowalski asked, stepping back.

“Ape,” Rosauro corrected with a sigh, as if she was tired of correcting the man. “A chimpanzee.”

“It’s Marta,” Monk said.

Gray heard the pain in his voice. A storm of radiation had to be surging through there. The figure moved slowly, slipping, knuckling awkwardly, already sick.

“What’s she trying to do?” Gray asked.

“Trying to save us all,” Monk answered.

Pyotr stayed with Marta. He pulled her flame close to his, not enough to be consumed, but so he could feed her his strength, let her know what she had to do, that she wasn’t alone. Likewise, he caught glimpses through her eyes, through her sharper senses.

He saw the column of roaring water. He felt a heat weakening and burning Marta. The air smelled like rotting fish and frightened both of them, a flow of dark water, from their shared nightmares.

Deadlier than any river.

But they faced it together.

Marta skirted around the gaping hole that swallowed the water so thirstily. It had to be stopped.

There was only one way.

Pyotr knew and told Marta. Konstantin had explained in detail how all the equipment worked: about the explosive charges, about the radio transmitters, about the giant silo doors.

He had also told Pyotr about the lever.

Marta needed no help. She spotted the rod of steel behind a piece of equipment. It could close the silo doors and stop the flow into the heart of the world. Pyotr felt the soft hoots of fear coming from her. He felt them under his own ribs.

You can do it, Marta…

She struggled, her skin burned, her fur fell like pine needles, her knuckles blistered in contact with the spray of water on the rock.

Pyotr held her flame and willed her strength.

She reached the lever. It was tilted close to the floor. It needed to be raised straight up. She hunched a shoulder under it, gripped the length with both hands, and heaved with her legs.

The steel would not move.

As death flowed behind her in a burning current, Pyotr felt the strain in her back, in her legs, in her heart.

Her flame flickered in his hands.

Marta…

But the lever would not move.

Monk watched Marta struggle with the lever. She was too weak. It would not budge. Pyotr began breathing hard, sharing the old chimpanzee’s fear and pain.

“Why won’t it move?” Gray asked.

“C’mon, you damn monkey!” Kowalski yelled.

Monk leaned closer, placing his own palm on the screen. He tried to remember the brief glimpse into the room as he had hurried past. As he strained, a sharp jab of electric pain shot through his head. Images from another time and place flashed.

…a man covered in coal soot…a plunging ride in an ore car…a white grin against dusty skin…that’s a boy!…just like, Daddy…

Then it was gone.

Monk struggled to retain something, but like a dream upon waking, memory began to dissolve through his fingers. Why did that particular memory dredge up? Buried in it must be something important.

As the memory faded, he caught a glimpse of that coal-dust-covered man slowing the ore car by squeezing the—

“Hand brake!” he gasped out.

He flashed back to the brief peek into the mine site before. He pictured the lever. It’d had a handgrip at its end.

Monk turned to Pyotr. He leaned and whispered in his feverish ear. “Marta must reach to the end of the lever. She must squeeze the handle. Then it will move for her.”

Pyotr continued to stare, as if deaf to his words, and maybe the boy truly could not hear. Monk had to get him to listen.

Seeming to understand his frustration, the woman Rosauro stepped next to him. “How are they communicating? Telepathically?”

“No. I think empathically. Sharing emotions. I’ve seen him do it with her before. Just not at such a distance.”

“Then you’ll have to reach him the same way.”

Monk glanced at her, as if she were a madwoman.

Gray spoke. “Rosauro’s specialty is neurology. Listen to her.”

The woman spoke slowly. “Empathy is all about sensation and tactility. You might be able to reach them the same way. Offer something that comforts him. It may open a path.”

Monk pictured Pyotr and Marta. They had been always touching, rubbing, grazing against each other, but Monk remembered what brought the boy the greatest sense of security and comfort.

Shifting, he wrapped his arms around Pyotr as he had seen Marta do so often. He felt the boy’s heart race like a hummingbird’s. Rocking the boy very gently, Monk huffed in his ear and whispered what must be done.

He willed it with all his heart.

Squeeze the hand brake…

Pyotr stayed with Marta as she struggled with the lever—then felt a familiar warmth coming from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and found a strong heart there, casting a fierce flame. He stared into that fire and sensed what must be done as much as he heard it.

He turned back to Marta and clasped to her, letting her know, too.

But his friend trembled and burned, growing so weak.

Please…

She hooted, scared, but one of her large hands slid up the lever and found the grip there. Long fingers wrapped around it and squeezed. Then she heaved again, shouldering the lever and pushing with her legs.

The lever moved, but it was still heavy. With shaking limbs, she fought it straight up and shoved it back. Something snapped loudly.

A great grind of gears sounded.

Exhausted and spent, Marta slumped to the ground.

“She did it!” Gray said.

On the screen, the hole in the floor began closing, snipping off the stream with a steel iris. The river of water, no longer able to drain below, flooded into the mining chamber.

The chimpanzee was flushed out of the room and into the tunnel, but more and more water followed. Though clearly exhausted and burned, she gained her feet and swung atop the train car. As black water rose around her, she loped back and forth across the roof, scribing a path of panic and distress.

Gray’s heart went out to the poor creature.

“Get that damned monkey out of there, for Christ’s sake!” Kowalski bellowed. He slammed a fist on the broken control board.

But there was nothing they could do. The doors were jammed, and water was swiftly filling the tunnel, which was sealed at both ends. Even if they could open the doors, the radiation level would kill them all. And ultimately, the chimpanzee had already been exposed to many times the lethal dosage.

Rosauro turned her back and stepped away, covering her mouth with concern.

Finally, the old chimpanzee settled to her haunches, hugging her knees. She began to rock. She knew what was coming.

Monk clutched the boy, a single tear running down his cheek.

In his arms, the boy rocked, too, in exact synch with his friend in the tunnel.

Pyotr stayed with Marta as the waters rose. Her heart flashed and swirled in fear. She’d always known the dark water would kill her. He held her now, as she had done with him so many times in the past. He wrapped his warm arms around her and pulled her tight. They rocked together one last time, two hearts sharing one flame.

Marta knew his secret, too.

She hooted softly and leaned her cheek against him.

Pyotr…

I love you, Marta…

As the waters rose to consume his friend, Pyotr looked into the dark sea that filled him, shining with seventy-seven bright lights, swirling around a brighter fire that was his own heart. One of his teachers had told him how planets circled suns, trapped in their orbits.

He understood.

He knew by consuming those stars he could never let them go. This was no nightmare where he stole only a little of their skill. He had crossed a line of no return. As he stared, he saw those stolen lights grow infinitesimally dimmer. He was burning them up, consuming his friends, his sister.

There was only one way to let them go.

It was the other reason he came to Marta.

He needed her.

Pyotr…no…

You must…

He felt her hands reach tentatively to that bright light inside his dark sea. Her long warm fingers wrapped around his own heart.

Pyotr…

But she knew. For the others to live, there was only one path. The others were trapped in his orbit, and if left unchecked, he would burn through them all. The only way to free them was to take away the sun that held them. Then the stars could fly back and return to where they belonged.

So Marta squeezed and squeezed as dark waters rose around her. Focused on him, she was no longer scared. As they rocked, she closed her fingers tenderly, but it still hurt.

Then just before Pyotr’s light fully died, he reached to a single star in that dark sea, slightly brighter still than the rest.

Sasha, he whispered and told his sister a secret.

The boy suddenly slumped in his arms. His small hand fell away from the screen. He saw Marta’s body get washed from the top of the train and swirl off into the darkness of the tunnel.

Monk lowered the boy to the floor. “Pyotr?

The boy stared blindly toward the ceiling, pupils dilated. Monk checked for a pulse. He found one but barely. The boy’s chest rose and fell.

Overhead, small cries and screams echoed down. The other children. They were waking, rising to find a room full of dead bodies.

Gray pointed. “Rosauro, Kowalski, go up and help them!”

Monk glanced to the grainy image from the other end of the tunnel. He watched kids stirring, others already standing. He saw Konstantin help Kiska sit up.

They were okay.

“What about the boy?” Gray asked.

Monk sat on the floor and cradled his thin body. Pyotr breathed, his blood pumped, but Monk stared into his blank eyes and knew the boy was gone.

Pyotr…why?

Gray joined him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe it’s shock. Maybe with time…”

Monk appreciated the offer of hope, but he knew the truth. As he had held the boy, he had felt the child let go. Monk’s gaze returned to the screen full of stirring children. Monk knew. Pyotr had sacrificed his life for them, for all his brothers and sisters.

Gray settled to his haunches next to him, keeping vigil with him.

The stranger seemed like a good man, and in this quiet moment alone, Monk felt a certain comfort around the guy. Not a memory, just a sensation that he could drop his guard without fear.

So Monk felt no shame as tears rolled heavily and he rocked Pyotr one last time, now just an empty shell of a boy.

Chapter 22

September 28, 4:21 P.M.
Washington, D.C.

Painter crossed through the rabble of tents and wagons covering the national Mall. The Gypsy encampment filled the grassy fields and long meadows of the Mall. The tents were a mix of traditional structures made of hazel rods thrust into the ground and covered in sailcloth, and more modern tents, fresh from a sporting goods store. The wagons were just as diverse, from simple structures to massive homes with smoking chimneys resting on tall painted wheels.

The Romani had come from all around the world to this great gathering. Horses were corralled in makeshift pens, children ran throughout, music rang out, great bouts of laughter echoed. And more and more were arriving each day.

The president had an official thank-you ceremony scheduled for the end of the week. Nothing like saving someone’s life to get them to extend a grateful hand of hospitality. Not to mention saving the world.

Painter followed a path through the chaos as dogs barked and children scampered out of his way. Tourists also shared the crooked alleyways and narrow bazaars, buying trinkets, having their fortunes told, or merely ogling the merry mayhem. Painter glanced up at the Washington Monument to help align himself and continued onward.

Stepping around a corner, a space opened in front of him, backed by one of the largest and most elaborately decorated wagons. Its wooden doors stood open. Painter spotted a cozy home with a raised double bed, cabinets brightly painted and lacquered in yellows and reds. There was even a small stove with a fancifully carved mantelpiece.

On the steps leading up to the wagon, Painter found Luca sitting with Gray, deep in conversation. The commander’s arm was still in a sling. A few steps away, Shay Rosauro was playing a game of daggers with a group of Gypsy men. One of her blades whistled through the air and hit the bull’s-eye, knocking off an opponent’s knife. From their plaintive calls for mercy, she must be soundly besting them.

Off to the side, Painter was surprised to see Elizabeth and Kowalski. The woman must have just returned from India to attend the ceremony. She was working with both Romani historians and Indian archaeologists to unearth the flooded Greek temple site.

Painter glanced to the right and spotted the banner across the front facade of the Museum of Natural History. It displayed a Greek mountain temple with a prominent capital epsilon in the center, announcing the upcoming exhibit about the Oracle of Delphi. With all the publicity of late about the archaeological discovery, tickets were already sold out for months in advance, many bought by the Gypsies here, eager to learn more about the origin of their clans.

Luca spotted Painter’s arrival and stood. The Gypsy was dressed in loose pants with a thick belt and matching black boots, along with an open vest over a long-sleeved embroidered shirt. “Ah, Director Crowe! Welcome!”

Painter offered a bow of his head to the clan leader. “Nais Tuke,” he thanked him in the Romani tongue.

Gray also stood. Like Kowalski, the commander was dressed casually in jeans and a light jacket. Over the past days, they had all found themselves coming here. It had been a long couple of weeks of funerals and grim meetings. Painter wandered here almost every night with Lisa. They would stroll through the camp, in each other’s arms, not talking, but listening to the songs and laughter as they passed families gathered around candle-lit suppers. Painter took solace in this fervent and bright reminder of the fullness of life. Painter also found the shared songs and communal camaraderie echoed back to his own childhood, to the tribal festivals on the Mashantucket reservations. It did feel like coming home…if just a bit.

But today’s gathering was more formal and practical.

They all crossed to a nearby plank table. A pair of massive draft horses were penned nearby.

As they sat, Gray asked, “So how did the meeting go?”

Luca stared at him with bright eyes.

Painter had just returned from a meeting with representatives from the State Department, the Russian embassy, and several child welfare organizations. The status of seventy-seven children was the point of contention. There were many claims on them.

“The Russians were happy to concede all authority over to us,” Painter began. “They have enough to clean up as it is. The latest radiological studies from the joint nuclear task force suggest that the partial flooding of Lake Karachay into the groundwater, while locally disastrous and requiring evacuation of lands for miles downstream, will not prove globally catastrophic. The floodgates were closed in time.”

Gray looked relieved. “And the children?”

Painter had visited the hospital this morning. An entire wing of George Washington University Hospital had been cordoned off to handle the children flown in from Russia. The neurology team had spent the last weeks slowly and meticulously removing the implants. As the chief neurologist had originally conjectured, the extraction was a delicate but not exceptionally complicated procedure. The last child had her implant removed a couple of days ago. They were all doing well.

“Testing shows some savant talent remains in the children but at a substantially weakened level,” Painter said. “Whatever communion was shared at the end seemed to have burned out the foundations of the neurological structure that produced their prodigious talent. But contrarily, the change also seemed to lessen their autistic presentation. The children have shown remarkable improvement. Still, whoever takes on the mantle of fostering these children will have to concede to a supervised monitoring of their health status, along with regular psychological evaluations, both in regard to their talents and to their general mental health.”

Painter stared at Luca, who remained stoic, but his eyes shone with hope. Painter finally smiled. “But the unanimous consensus of the panel is that the children will be released to Gypsy families for that fostering.”

Luca pounded a fist on the table. “Yes!”

His loud reaction earned a whinnied complaint from one of the draft horses and an equally firm stamp of a large hoof.

Painter spent another half hour going over further details, which helped sober the man but failed to dim the light in the Gypsy’s eyes. Finally they all stood and began to disperse.

Elizabeth headed out, with Kowalski at her elbow.

“Now that you’re back in town,” Kowalski mumbled to her, running a palm over his shaved scalp. “Would you want…Maybe we could…?”

Gray winced at the man’s efforts and nodded for Painter to move to the side. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“What is it, Joe?” Elizabeth asked, an eyebrow lifted curiously at the large man.

He stammered, cursed under his breath, then straightened. “Do you want to go out on a date?”

Smooth, Painter thought, suppressing a grin.

Elizabeth shrugged and led Kowalski out. “You mean a second date, right?”

Kowalski’s brow crinkled like a washboard.

“I think being shot at, kidnapped, irradiated, and saving the world classifies at least as a first date.”

Kowalski tripped along next to her, his mind catching up at about the same pace. “So you’ll go?”

Elizabeth nodded. “As long as you bring the cigars.”

Kowalski grinned. “I got a whole box of—aw, crap!” He stopped and stared down at his shoes. His left foot had landed squarely in a pile of horse manure. “These are my brand-new Chukkas!”

Elizabeth hooked his arm under hers and headed off. “It’ll wash off.”

“But you don’t understand! The leather is hand polished by…”

The pair disappeared into the throng.

Gray shook his head. “Kowalski’s got a date. I think hell’s just gotten a little bit colder.”

Painter and Gray headed out toward the Smithsonian Castle. Both of them had a ton of work still to do. Sigma command remained in disarray, both politically and structurally. They’d lost some key people during the initial assault, and one entire level remained cordoned off due to the firestorm. Repairs and inspections of the infrastructure were still under way.

But politically things were far dicier. They had managed to capture the neurologist Dr. James Chen, one of the Jasons involved with Mapplethorpe and McBride. Under interrogation, he was helping them weed out the corrupt Jasons from the legitimate scientists working for the Defense Department. But Mapplethorpe was another matter. He had his fingers throughout Washington’s intelligence agencies. It was still unclear if he had been operating solely as a rogue agent or if there were members of the Washington establishment who had supported the man’s action. As a result, intelligence camps were circling their wagons, protecting themselves but still pointing fingers.

Even toward Sigma.

So vultures circled, but Painter had the backing of a grateful president. It would take work, but they’d get things running smoothly before long. In fact, Painter was scheduled to meet Sean McKnight’s replacement tomorrow, the new interim head of DARPA. The president initially offered Painter the position, but he had declined. Sigma needed some continuity. As the joint brainchild of Archibald Polk and Sean McKnight, Painter could not abandon Sigma.

Painter glanced at Gray. “I assume you’ll be spending all day at the hospital tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Kat will need company.”

Monk Kokkalis’s surgery was scheduled for six in the morning. An MRI revealed what had been done to Monk in the Russian lab, but it remained unknown if the damage could ever be reversed. The Russians had wired a microchip into Monk’s basolateral amygdala. The neurologists believed the chip had induced and maintained a fluid amnesia. It was a technique already being investigated using chemicals, specifically propranolol as a beta-blocker to erase especially strong memories of trauma. The Russians had been experimenting on Monk, using the biotechnological equivalent.

The surgery had been delayed until Monk finished a series of antiradiation treatments. The neurologists used the extra time to study Monk’s case, but they still could not say if he’d ever get his memory back—especially with the other result found during the MRI. In order to install the chip, a small section of Monk’s cerebral cortex had been removed.

Painter recalled the horror on Gray’s face upon learning that and his dismayed words: First his hand, now a section of his brain…it’s like Monk is slowly being whittled away.

“Has there been any indication that Monk recognizes Kat?” Painter asked.

Gray shook his head. “The doctors have mostly kept her away. They believe that, while the chip is still in his head, further stress on his memory, like the emotional connection with Kat, might actually cause more damage than good.”

“Still, she visited him.”

He nodded. “She had to. She went into the room with a group of nurses. Monk conversed with them, but he had no reaction upon seeing Kat. Nothing at all. It practically destroyed her. She has Monk back, but he’s still lost to her.”

“Then we’ll have to pray for the best.”

September 29, 6:21 P.M.
George Washington University Hospital

The man woke into a room too bright. It stung his eyes and pounded deep into the back of his head. Nausea followed, accompanied by a swirl of details. He swallowed hard a few times and forced his vision to steady.

A slim woman in a blue smock patted his hand. “There you go, Mr. Kokkalis. Just breathe.” She turned away. “He’s coming around more fully this time.”

The spinning settled. The pounding of the drum inside his head slowed to a dull pressure. He found himself in a hospital room, remembering in bits and pieces. The operation. He lifted an arm and found it strapped to a plastic splint through which intravenous lines dripped both clear saline and a unit of blood. To the side, monitors beeped and whirred.

Monk tried to move his head, but his neck ached, and a tube ran down from a cap atop his head.

A series of doctors came through, shining lights into his eyes, making him do simple motor tests, judging his ability to swallow with ice chips, and performing other cranial nerve function tests. After about ten minutes, they drifted away, chattering about his case, leaving two people standing at the foot of his bed.

Monk recognized the man. “Gray…,” he said hoarsely, his throat still raw from the endotracheal tube.

The man’s eyes brightened.

Monk knew what they all hoped, what he hoped, but he shook his head. He knew the man only from the chaos in Russia. A striking woman in jeans and a loose blouse leaned next to him, her auburn hair down to her shoulders. Her emerald eyes searched Monk for some answer. But he didn’t even know the question.

Gray touched her elbow. “It may be too soon, Kat. You know that. The doctors said it might take months.”

She turned slightly to the side and wiped her eyes. “I know,” she said, but it sounded like a moan.

With his senses tuned sharp by a trailing edge of nausea, Monk caught a scent in the air, familiar, spiced yet musky. No memory came with it, but his breathing grew heavier. Something…something about…

“We should let him rest,” Gray said and guided the woman away. “We’ll come back in the morning. It’s been a long day. You should be getting her home anyway.”

Gray nodded to a blue stroller behind them. A small child slept, nestled in blankets, head capped like Monk’s, eyes closed, a pursed button of a mouth.

Monk’s eyes locked on the baby. Staccato flashes burst into existence out of nothingness.

…tiny fingers curled around his finger…walking down a long, dark hall, tired, rocking the small figure in his arms…little kicking feet as he changed a diaper…

Just snippets. No coherency. But unlike before, there was no pain, only a soothing brightness that did not fade this time.

Out of that glow, he found a small sliver of himself.

“She’s…her name…” The two turned to her. “It’s Penelope.”

The woman stared at the child, back to him. Her entire form shook as teats spilled in shining streaks of joy. “Monk…”

She rushed to his side, falling over him. She leaned and kissed him gently, her hair draped over them like a tent.

He remembered.

The taste of cinnamon, soft lips…

He still did not know her name, but a surge of love swelled through him that drew tears to his own eyes. Maybe he would never know her name, not truly, but Monk knew one thing with all his heart: if she’d let him, he would spend the rest of his life learning who she was all over again.

7:01 P.M.

Gray headed down the hospital corridor, leaving Kat and Monk some privacy. While here, he wanted to check on one last patient. He crossed over to the children’s ward. He showed his identification to an armed guard who protected the wing.

Once through, he passed several wards and smaller rooms. The walls were painted with balloons and cartoon animals. He passed a tall boy in hospital pajamas. He was walking with a smaller girl. Both their heads were shaved on one side. They were chatting enthusiastically in Russian.

All the children seemed to be recovering from their ordeal.

That is, all except one.

He crossed down another long corridor to a private room at the very end. The door was open. He heard voices inside.

Gray knocked softly and entered. The room held a single bed and a small play area with a yellow plastic table and a set of children’s chairs around it. He found Dr. Lisa Cummings standing inside, filling out a chart. With her medical background, she was assisting the surgeons and doctors, while keeping Painter updated on status reports and abreast of any problems.

Sasha sat at the table, coloring in her book. She wore a pink bonnet that covered her shaved head.

“Mr. Gray!” the girl called to him and popped out of her chair like a jackrabbit and ran over to him. She hugged his leg.

He patted her shoulder.

Sasha came here as often as Gray, visiting her brother.

Pyotr sat in a wheelchair by the window, staring out at the growing twilight. He sat like a mannequin. Upright, stiff, unresponsive.

“Any change?” Gray asked and nodded to the chart in Lisa’s hands.

“Some actually. He’s now taking food by spoon. Baby food. It’s like he’s infantilized. The doctors are hoping that over time, he may grow into his body.”

Gray hoped they were right. The boy had saved the world and sacrificed everything to do it.

“Gray, if you can put the boy to bed, we’ll let you have some time alone with him.”

Gray nodded.

“C’mon, Sasha, let’s go back to your room.”

“Wait!” She let go of Gray’s leg and ran to Pyotr.

“Say good night to Pyotr, then we have to go,” Lisa insisted.

Sasha kissed her brother on the cheek, then came running back to Gray and lifted her arms toward him.

Gray knelt down for a good-bye kiss, too, and offered his cheek. She kissed it, then grabbed his earlobe. She leaned in close and whispered, tickling his ear.

“Pyotr’s not in there,” she said in conspiratorial tones. “Someone else is in there. But I’ll still love him.”

Gray felt a slight chill at her words. Sasha must have overheard the doctors. The prognosis was ultimately grim. Even if Pyotr could recover some manner of life, he wouldn’t be the same boy.

Gray rubbed her arm, reassuring her, but he offered her no false hope. It was best she adjust to the reality in her own way.

“Sasha,” Lisa said warningly.

“Wait!” she burst out again and ran to her table. “I have something for Mr. Gray.” She shuffled through her piles of papers.

Gray waited, still down on one knee.

Lisa smiled. “She really doesn’t want to go to bed.”

The girl came flying back with a page ripped from a coloring book in her hand. She thrust it at Gray. “Here,” she said proudly.

Gray stared down at a picture of a clown. She had colored it perfectly, even adding some nuance with shading to make the clown seem both sad and slightly creepy. She obviously still retained some artistic talent.

Sasha leaned to his ear again. “You’re going to die.”

Gray was taken aback by her statement, but there was no menace in her voice, only a matter-of-fact tone, as if commenting on the weather. Gray imagined Sasha was struggling to understand the concept of death. She had seen too much of it, and her brother hung somewhere in the balance between the living and the dead.

Gray didn’t know what to say. But like before, he wouldn’t lie to her. He stood but kept a hand on her shoulder. “We all die eventually, Sasha. It’s the natural order.”

She sighed in the overly dramatic manner of all exasperated children.

“No, silly.” She pointed up to the paper. “You have to be careful of that! That’s why I drew it!”

Lisa pointed to the door. “That’s enough, Sasha. Time for bed.”

“Wait!”

“No.”

Crestfallen, she allowed Lisa to drag her away. She waved back at Gray, using her entire arm.

Once they were gone, Gray crossed over to Pyotr. He liked to sit with the boy, to let him know he was not forgotten, that his sacrifice would be remembered. He also came here because of Monk. The boy had meant so much to his friend. Gray felt a certain obligation to keep Pyotr company.

But in truth, the visits were also a balm on his heart. He felt a strange calmness with the boy that was inexplicable, as if some empathic aura still surrounded the child.

As Gray sat now, he considered all that had happened. He remembered the boy dragging Monk into view down the hall. Gray now understood what Pyotr had been doing. His sister had saved Monk’s life by plucking him out of the sea and out of their lives, and Pyotr had been returning him, like putting a borrowed wrench back into a neighbor’s toolbox.

All that had happened…Gray knew it hadn’t been luck, nor even coincidence. He stared at Pyotr and pictured Sasha, too.

It had all been orchestrated.

And as Gray stared, he also recalled Nicolas Solokov’s goal: to manipulate the savants in order to produce the world’s next great prophet. The next Buddha or Muhammad or Christ. Gray had also discussed such speculations with Monk while the two had visited Pyotr here.

Afterward, his friend had nodded to the boy.

Maybe the Russians were more successful than they had imagined.

Either way, like so many great people, Pyotr had paid the ultimate sacrifice. Now they would never know the truth. And maybe it was better that way.

Gray sighed and pushed away such melancholy thoughts. In his hands, he folded Sasha’s coloring page and glanced down to it. Apparently, besides everything else, Gray now had to worry about creepy clowns. As he creased the paper, he saw that the child had drawn something freehand on the blank page on the back.

Unfolding it, he stared down at a shape, finely drawn in black crayon.

It was a small Chinese dragon, beautifully executed.

An icy jolt of recognition shot through Gray. His hand rose to his throat. Tucked under his shirt was a pendant bearing the same dragon in silver, a gift from an assassin, both a promise from her and a curse.

Gray glanced to the doorway. Had Sasha seen the charm sometime? He stared down at the crayon drawing, knowing in his heart she hadn’t.

It was a warning—but not about clowns. As he stared, Gray realized Sasha had been pointing up to the page in his hands. From her low vantage, she hadn’t been indicating the clown. She had been pointing to the page’s underside.

To the dragon symbol.

In the quiet of the room, Gray sensed a looming danger. He whispered the name tied to that threat.

“Seichan.”

EPILOGUE

The boy sits by the window and stares out at the twilight world beyond. He is not ready to go out there yet. He still has much to adjust to in this new home. It fits him poorly and makes it difficult for him to think.

He can see his reflection in the glass: dark hair, small features, a familiar face. But it does not yet feel like his own. That, too, would come in time. As he stares, he watches the leaves falling past the window, drifting on the wind.

There is no fear now, even as more leaves fall. That which lies deep inside him fills in the spaces with shadow and shape. Formed out of memory. What comes is still more familiar than his own reflection in the glass. He knows it was the face he once wore.

He still remembers the darkness, a black sea swimming with lights. He remembers the dying sun in the middle, strangled away so that others might fly and shine. But in that last moment, the boy who had once worn this body had kept a secret from them all. As he left that dark sea to places beyond, he pulled another light out of harm’s way and dropped it into that empty dark sea.

So it might live anew.

Outside now, more leaves tumble, and shadows of memory fill in gaps, forming the true face of the one who wore this body now.

This old face would be forgotten eventually, but not the boy who gave up his life so something new could be born. Often in his dreams, he sees that boy running over fields, topping a hill, waving back—then gone.

So happy now.

The new boy who sits in the chair stares out the window.

Sometime he will run again, too.

Author’s Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction

Like Dr. Archibald Polk, I started this novel with a fascination in human intuition. Does it exist? Where does it come from? So as usual, I thought I’d end this adventure by noting where many of the ideas and facts originated, dividing them by subject matter.

The Greek Oracle of Delphi. I spent some time in the prologue on the myths and realities surrounding the Oracle. Whether these women could truly see the future or not might be up for debate, but what we do know for certain is that the Delphic Oracle’s prophecies were indeed fundamental in changing the course of Western civilization. As to the details—such as the mystery of the capital epsilon and the strange hallucinogenic gases—they are all factual. A great book for anyone interested in exploring this subject in greater detail is The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi by William J. Broad.

The Jasons. This organization of scientists who work alongside the Defense Department is a real organization and is still operating. For a truly absorbing read into their history and accomplishments, pick up a copy of The Jasons: The Secret History of Science’s Postwar Elite by Ann Finkbeiner.

Project Stargate. This was a real program run out of the Stanford Research Institute and funded by the CIA. Their strange successes into remote viewing are factual.

Brain manipulation. There was much speculation in the book about brain plasticity, about augmentation with transcranial magnetic stimulation, and about how humans are “natural-born cyborgs.” How much of that is true? All of it. For an enlightening and entertaining exploration into the mystery of the human brain, I suggest you read The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge, M.D. As to Monk’s induced amnesia, there are chemical techniques employed today that can erase selected memories, specifically through the use of propranolol.

Can we see the future? Nobel Prize–winning scientists say yes. The experiments on gamblers and soldiers described in this book are real and have been repeated at universities around the world. According to those distinguished researchers, we do seem capable of seeing for about three seconds into the future. How is that possible? That remains unanswered. As to the stories about the amazing savants in India—like the Indian boy who was taken to Oxford and the woman who met Einstein—they are based on fact. You can read more about these histories in Intuition: Knowing Beyond Logic by Osho.

India and Gypsies. The history of the Romani and their roots in the Punjab region in India is factual. This origin is also the reason the chakra wheel is prominently centered on the Romani flag. As to India’s caste system, the plight and status of the “untouchable” classes is a true concern. In fact, some historians believe it was just such a friction among castes that drove the Gypsy forefathers out of India. For more details about this struggle, there is a disturbing article in National Geographic in the June 2003 issue, titled “India’s Untouchables.” Oh, and if you’re ever visiting the Taj Mahal, there truly is a revolving restaurant atop the Deedar-e-Taj Hotel. I recommend the pani pani or golguppa.

Russia’s radioactive legacy. The descriptions of Pripyat and the planned closure of the old Sarcophagus under a giant arch of twelve-meter-thick steel is factual. Details about the old Soviet Union’s plutonium factories in the Ural Mountains, as disturbing as they may sound, are also true. There are indeed underground cities where prisoners were housed to work the uranium mines. Most miners died before ever earning their freedom. And today, the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural Mountains remains one of the most polluted places on the planet. In fact, Lake Karachay does exist, and according to the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., the radiation level on the shore is sufficient to deliver a lethal dose to someone in less than an hour. So as Konstantin warned, it’s not a good place for a picnic. Worse yet, the lake is leaking radiation into the neighboring Asanov swamp. Fault lines do cross under the lake. An earthquake potentially threatens to do just what Savina Martov sought to accelerate. Such a disaster would kill the Arctic Ocean and sweep over northern Europe.

Strange weapons. In this book, I employed sonic flares, radiosensitive poisons, whip-swords, shotguns that shoot Taser rounds, even a cell phone that converts into a gun. As you might guess, they’re all real.

Autism and Autistic Savant Syndrome. While the exact cause for autism remains unknown, the latest research initiated by the Autism Genome Project in collaboration with the National Institute of Health has found that certain genes, along with environmental factors, contribute to the presentation of the disorder. For a better understanding of such unique minds, I highly recommend Dr. Temple Grandin’s book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism. Another book that I found insightful about autism and savant syndrome was the memoir by Daniel Tammet, Born on a Blue Monday: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant.

In fact, the seed for this novel came from a quote by Dr. Temple Grandin. She was kind enough to permit me to use it: “If by some magic, autism had been eradicated from the face of the earth, then men would still be socializing in front of a wood fire at the entrance to a cave.” To my mind, it echoes the quote at the beginning of this novel from Socrates about the Oracle of Delphi: “The greatest blessings granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.” It makes one wonder if such unique minds truly guided the path of mankind’s history.

To answer that, I’ll end with a partial list of famous historical figures who are believed to have displayed some level of autistic tendencies.

Hans Christian Andersen

Jane Austen

Ludwig van Beethoven

Emily Dickinson

Thomas Edison

Albert Einstein

Henry Ford

Thomas Jefferson

Franz Kafka

Michelangelo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Isaac Newton

Friedrich Nietzsche

Mark Twain

Nikola Tesla

Henry David Thoreau

Alan Turing

Nostradamus

You be the judge.

THE DEVIL COLONY

A Sigma Force Novel

James Rollins

Notes from the Historical Record

Every schoolchild knows the name of THOMAS JEFFERSON, the architect and scribe of the Declaration of Independence, the man who helped establish a nation out of a scatter of colonies in the New World. Volumes have been written about the man over the past two centuries, but of all the Founding Fathers of America, he remains to this day wrapped in mystery and contradictions.

For instance, it was only in 2007 that a coded letter, buried in his papers, was finally cracked and deciphered. It was sent to Jefferson in 1801 by his colleague at the American Philosophical Society—a colonial-era think tank promoting science and scholarly debate. The group was especially interested in two topics: developing unbreakable codes and investigating mysteries surrounding the native tribes who populated the New World.

Jefferson was fascinated to the point of fixation on Native American culture and history. At his home in Monticello, he put together a collection of tribal artifacts that was said to rival those held in museums of the day (a collection that mysteriously disappeared after his death). Many of these Indian relics were sent to him by Lewis and Clark during their famed expedition across America. But what many don’t know is that Jefferson sent a secret message to Congress in 1803 concerning Lewis and Clark’s expedition. It revealed the true hidden purpose behind the journey across the West.

Within these pages, you’ll learn that purpose. For there is a secret history to the founding of America of which only a few have knowledge. It has nothing to do with freemasons, Knights Templar, or crackpot theories. In fact, a clue hangs boldly in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Within that noble hall hangs the famous painting by John Turnbull, Declaration of Independence (a work overseen by Jefferson). It depicts each man who signed that famous document—but what few ever note is that Turnbull painted five extra men into that painting, men who never signed the Declaration of Independence. Why? And who were they?

For answers, keep reading.

Notes from the Scientific Record

In this new millennium, the next big leap in scientific research and industry can be summarized in one word: NANOTECHNOLOGY. In a nutshell, it means manufacturing at the atomic level, at a level of one billionth of a meter. To picture something so small, look at the period at the end of this sentence. Scientists at Nanotech.org have succeeded in building test tubes so tiny that 300 billion of them would fit within that one period.

And that nanotechnology industry is exploding. It is estimated that this year alone $70 billion worth of nanotech products will be sold in the United States. Nano-goods are found everywhere: toothpaste, sunscreen, cake icing, teething rings, running socks, cosmetics, medicines, even Olympic bobsleds. Currently close to ten thousand products contain nanoparticles.

What’s the downside of such a growth industry? These nanoparticles can cause illness, even death. UCLA scientists have found that nano-titantium oxide (found in children’s sunscreens and many other products) can trigger damage to animals at the genetic level. Carbon nanotubes (found in thousands of everyday products, including children’s safety helmets) have been shown to accumulate in the lungs and brains of rats. Also, weird and unexpected things happen at this small level. Take aluminum foil. It’s harmless enough and convenient for wrapping up leftovers, but break it down into nanoparticles, and it becomes explosive.

It’s a new and wild frontier. There is presently no requirement for the labeling of nano-goods, no required safety studies of products containing nanoparticles. But there’s an even darker side to this industry. This technology has a history that goes back further than the twentieth century—much further. To find out where this all began and to discover the dark roots of this “new” science . . .

. . . Keep reading.

Prologue

Autumn 1779

Kentucky Territory

The skull of the monster slowly revealed itself.

A shard of yellowed tusk poked through the dark soil.

Two muddied men knelt in the dirt on either side of the excavated hole. One of them was Billy Preston’s father; the other, his uncle. Billy stood over them, nervously chewing a knuckle. At twelve, he had begged to be included on this trip. In the past, he’d always been left behind in Philadelphia with his mother and his baby sister, Nell.

Pride spiked through him even to be standing here.

But at the moment it was accompanied by a twinge of fear.

Maybe that was due to the sun sitting low on the horizon, casting tangled shadows over the encampment like a net. Or maybe it was the bones they’d been digging up all week.

Others gathered around: the black-skinned slaves who hauled stones and dirt; the primly dressed scholars with their ink-stained fingers; and of course, the cryptic French scientist named Archard Fortescue, the leader of this expedition into the Kentucky wilderness.

The latter—with his tall bony frame, coal-black hair, and shadowed eyes—scared Billy, reminding him of an undertaker in his black jacket and waistcoat. He had heard whispered rumors about the gaunt fellow: how the man dissected corpses, performed experiments with them, traveled to far corners of the world collecting arcane artifacts. It was even said he had once participated in the mummification of a deceased fellow scholar, a man who had donated his body and risked his immortal soul for such a macabre endeavor.

But the French scientist had come with credentials to support him. Benjamin Franklin had handpicked him to join a new scientific group, the American Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge. He had apparently impressed Franklin in the past, though the exact details remained unknown. Additionally, the Frenchman had the ear of the new governor of Virginia, the man who had ordered them all to this strange site.

It was why they were still here—and had been for so long.

Over the passing weeks, Billy had watched the surrounding foliage slowly turn from shades of copper to fiery crimson. The past few mornings had begun to frost. At night, winds stripped the trees, leaving skeletal branches scratching at the sky. At the start of each day, Billy had to sweep and rake away piles of leaves from the dig site. It was a constant battle, as if the forest were trying to rebury what lay exposed to the sun.

Even now, Billy held the hay-bristled broom and watched as his father—dressed in muddy breeches, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows—cleared the last of the dirt from the buried treasure.

“With great care now . . .” Fortescue warned in his thick accent. He swept back the tails of his jacket to lean closer, one fist on his hip, the other hand leaning on a carved wooden cane.

Billy bristled at the implied condescension in the Frenchman’s manner. His father knew all the woods, from the tidewaters of Virginia to remote tracts of Kentucky, better than any man. Since before the war, his father had been a trapper and trader with the Indians in these parts. He’d even once met Daniel Boone.

Still, Billy saw how his father’s hands shook as he used brush and trowel to pick and tease the treasure out of the rich forest loam.

“This is it,” his uncle said, excited. “We found it.”

Fortescue loomed over the kneeling men. “Naturellement. Of course it would be buried here. Buried at the head of the serpent.”

Billy didn’t know what they were seeking—only his father and uncle had read the sealed letters from the governor to the Frenchman—but he knew what Fortescue meant by “the serpent.”

Billy glanced away from the hole to survey the breadth of the site. They’d been excavating an earthen mound that wound and twisted away through the forest. It stood two yards high, twice that wide, and ran two thousand feet through the woods and over the gentle hills. It looked like a giant snake had died and been buried where it fell.

Billy had heard about such earthen mounds. Embankments such as these, along with many more man-made hills, dotted the wilderness of the Americas. His father claimed the long-lost ancestors of the region’s savages had built them, that they were sacred Indian burial mounds. It was said that the savages themselves had no memory of the ancient mound builders, only myths and legends. Stories continued to abound of lost civilizations, of ancient kingdoms, of ghosts, of vile curses—and, of course, of buried treasures.

Billy shifted closer as his father unearthed the object, wrapped in what appeared to be a thick hide of skin, the black coarse fur still intact. A musky scent—a heavy mix of loam and beast—welled up, overpowering even the smell of venison stew from the neighboring cook fires.

“Buffalo hide,” his father determined, glancing over to Fortescue.

The Frenchman nodded for him to continue.

Using both hands, his father gently peeled away a flap of the hide to reveal what had lain hidden for ages.

Billy held his breath.

Since the founding of these lands, many Indian mounds had been dug up and looted. All that had been found were the buried bones of the dead, along with a few arrowheads, hide shields, and shards of Indian pottery.

So why was this particular site so important?

After two months of meticulously surveying, mapping, and digging, Billy was still none the wiser as to why they had been directed to come here. Like the looters of other barrows, all his father’s team had to show for their meticulous work was a collection of Indian tokens and artifacts: bows, quivers, lances, a massive cooking pot, a pair of beaded moccasins, an elaborate headdress. And, of course, they found bones. Thousands and thousands of them. Skulls, ribs, leg bones, pelvises. He’d overheard Fortescue estimate at least a hundred men, women, and children must have been buried here.

It was a daunting endeavor to collect and catalog everything. It had taken them all the way to the edge of winter to work from one end of the winding mound to the other, painstakingly stripping down the Indian burial mound layer by layer, sifting through dirt and rock—until, as the Frenchman said, they’d reached the head of the serpent.

His father unfolded the buffalo skin. Gasps spread among those gathered here. Even Fortescue took a sharp intake of breath through his pinched nose.

Across the inner surface of the preserved hide, a riotous battle had been drawn. Stylized figures of men on horseback raced across the hide, many bearing shields. Spears stabbed with splashes of crimson dyes. Arrows flew. Billy swore he could hear the whoops and war cries of the savages.

Fortescue spoke as he knelt down. A hand hovered over the display. “I’ve witnessed such handiwork before. The natives would tan the buffalo skin with a mash of the beast’s own brains, then apply their pigment with a hollowed-out piece of its own bone. But, mon Dieu, I’ve never seen such a masterpiece as this. Look how each horse is different from another, how each warrior’s garb is painted in such detail.”

The Frenchman’s hand shifted next to hover over what the hide had protected all these years. “And I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The skull of the monster was laid bare. Earlier, they had excavated the broken tusks of the beast, poking out of the hide-wrapped package. The cranium, exposed now to the light of day, was as large as a church bell. And like the buffalo hide, the bone of the skull had also been adorned, become a canvas for some prehistoric artist.

Across its surface, figures and shapes had been carved into the bone and painted so brightly they looked wet to the touch.

Billy’s uncle spoke, full of awe. “The skull. It’s a mammoth, isn’t it? Like those found over at Big Salt Lick.”

“No. It’s not a mammoth,” Fortescue said, and pointed with the tip of his cane. “See the curve and length of the tusks, the giant size of its masticating teeth. The anatomy and conformation of the skull are different from the mammoth specimens of the Old World. Remains such as these—unique to the Americas—have been reclassified as a new species, a beast called a mastodon.”

“I don’t care what it’s called,” his father commented forcefully. “Is this the right skull or not? That’s what I want to know.”

“There is only one way to find out.”

Fortescue reached and ran his index finger along the bony crest of the skull. The tip of his finger sank into a hole near the back. Over the years, Billy had dressed enough deer and rabbit carcasses to know the hole looked too clean to be natural. The Frenchman used that purchase and pulled up.

Another round of gasps spread outward. Several of the slaves fell back in horror. Billy’s eyes widened as the top of the monster’s skull split into two halves, opening like the doors of a cabinet. With his father’s help, Fortescue gently pushed back the two pieces of the cranium—each two inches thick and as large as dinner platters.

Even in the meager sunlight, what lay inside the skull glinted brightly.

“Gold,” his uncle choked out, shocked.

The entire inside of the skull had been plated in the precious metal. Fortescue ran a finger along the inner surface of one of the bony halves. Only now did Billy notice the bumps and grooves across the gold surface. It looked to be a crude map, with stylized trees, sculpted mountains, and snaking rivers. The surface was also inscribed with hen scratches that might be writing.

Leaning closer, he heard Fortescue mumble one word, full of awe and a flicker of fear. “Hebrew.”

After the initial shock wore off, his father spoke at Billy’s elbow: “But the skull is empty.”

Fortescue turned his attention to the open cavity of the gold-lined cranium. The space was large enough to cradle a newborn baby inside, but as his father had noted, it was empty.

Fortescue studied the cavity, his face unreadable, but behind his eyes, Billy saw his mind churning on unfathomable calculations and speculations.

What had they expected to find?

Fortescue stood up. “Close it back up. Keep it wrapped in the hide. We need it ready for transport to Virginia within the hour.”

No one argued. If word spread of gold here, the place would surely be ransacked. Over the next hour, as the sun sank below the horizon and torches were lit, men worked quickly to free the massive skull. A wagon was prepared, horses readied. Billy’s father, his uncle, and the Frenchman spent much of that time with their heads bent together.

Billy crept close enough with his broom to eavesdrop on their conversation, pretending to be busy. Still, their voices were too low to pick out more than a few words.

“It may be enough,” Fortescue said. “ . . . a place to start. If the enemy finds it before us, your young union will be doomed before it has even begun.”

His father shook his head. “Then maybe it best be destroyed now. Set a bonfire here. Burn the bone to ash, melt the gold to slag.”

“It may come to that, but we’ll leave such a decision to the governor.”

His father looked ready to argue with the Frenchman, but then caught Billy hovering nearby. He turned and lifted an arm to shoo Billy off and opened his mouth to speak.

Those words never came.

Before his father could speak, his throat exploded in a spray of blood. He fell to his knees, clutching at his neck. An arrowhead poked from under his jaw. Blood poured between his fingers, bubbled from his lips.

Billy ran toward his father, regressing from young man to child in a dark instant. “Papa!”

In shock, his ears went deaf. The world shrank to include only his father, who stared back at him, full of pain and regret. Then his father’s body jerked, again and again, and toppled forward. Feathers peppered his back. Behind the body, Billy saw his uncle kneeling, head hanging. A spear had cleaved clean through his chest from behind, its point buried in the dirt, its shaft propping the dead body up.

Before Billy could comprehend what he was seeing, what was happening, he was struck from the side—not by an arrow or spear, but by an arm. He was knocked to the ground and rolled. The impact also snapped the world back into full focus.

Shouts filled his ears. Horses screamed. Shadows danced amid torches as scores of men fought and grappled. All around, arrows sang through the air, accompanied by savage whoops.

An Indian attack.

Billy struggled, but he was pinned under the Frenchman. Fortescue hissed in his ear. “Stay down, boy.”

The Frenchman rolled off him and flew to his feet as a half-naked savage, his face painted in a red mask of terror, came flying toward him, a hatchet raised high. Fortescue defended with his only weapon, as meager as it might be—his cane.

As the length of carved oak swung to point at the attacker, it parted near the handle. A sheath of wood flew from the cane’s tip, revealing a sword hidden at its core. The empty sheath struck the savage in the forehead and caused him to stumble in his attack. Fortescue took advantage and lunged out, skewering the attacker through the chest.

A guttural scream followed. Fortescue turned the man’s momentum, and dropped the savage beside Billy on the ground.

The Frenchman yanked his sword free. “To me, boy!”

Billy obeyed. It was all his mind would allow. He had no time to think. He struggled up, but a hand grabbed his arm. The bloody savage sought to hold him. Billy tugged his arm loose.

The Indian fell back. Where the hand had clutched his sleeve, a smeared handprint remained. Not blood, Billy realized in a flash.

Paint.

He stared down at the dying savage. The palm that had clutched him was as white as a lily, though some of the paint was sticking to creases in the palm.

Fingers clamped onto his collar and pulled him to his feet.

Billy turned to Fortescue, who still kept hold of him. “They . . . they’re not Indians,” he sobbed out, struggling to understand.

“I know,” Fortescue answered with nary a bit of fright.

All around, chaos continued to reign. The last two torches went dark. Screams, prayers, and pleas for mercy echoed all around.

Fortescue hauled Billy across the encampment, staying low, stopping only long enough to gather up the loose buffalo hide, which he shoved at Billy. They reached a lone horse hidden deeper in the woods, tethered to a tree, already saddled as if someone had anticipated the attack. The horse stamped and threw its head, panicked by the cries, by the smell of blood.

The Frenchman pointed. “Up you go. Be ready to fly.”

As Billy hooked a boot into the stirrup, the Frenchman vanished back into the shadows. With no choice, Billy climbed into the saddle. His weight seemed to calm the horse. He hugged his arms around the mount’s sweaty neck, but his heart continued to pound in his throat. Blood rushed through his ears. He wanted to clamp his hands over those ears, to shut out the bloody screams, but he strained to see any sign of approach by the savages.

No, not savages, he reminded himself.

A branch cracked behind him. He twisted around as a shape limped into view. From the cape of his jacket and the glint of his sword, he could see it was the Frenchman. Billy wanted to leap off the horse and clasp tightly to the man, to force him to make some sense of the bloodshed and deceit.

Fortescue stumbled up to him. The broken shaft of an arrow stuck out of the man’s thigh, just above the knee. As he reached Billy’s side, he shoved two large objects up at him.

“Take these. Keep them bundled in the hide.”

Billy accepted the burdens. With a shock, he saw it was the crown of the monster’s cranium, split into two halves, bone on one side, gold on the other. Fortescue must have stolen them off the larger skull.

But why?

With no time for answers, he folded the two platters of gold-plated bone into the buffalo hide in his lap.

“Go,” Fortescue said.

Billy took the reins but hesitated. “What about you, sir?”

Fortescue placed a hand on his knee, as if sensing his raw terror, trying to reassure him. His words were firm and fast. “You and your horse have enough of a burden to bear without my weight. You must fly as swiftly as you can. Take it where it will be safe.”

“Where?” Billy asked, clenching the reins.

“To the new governor of Virginia.” The Frenchman stepped away. “Take it to Thomas Jefferson.”

PART I

Trespass

Chapter 1

Present Day

May 18, 1:32 P.M.

Rocky Mountains, Utah

It looked like the entrance to hell.

The two young men stood on a ridge overlooking a deep, shadowy chasm. It had taken them eight hours to climb from the tiny burg of Roosevelt to this remote spot high in the Rocky Mountains.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Trent Wilder asked.

Charlie Reed took out his cell phone, checked the GPS, then examined the Indian map drawn on a piece of deer hide and sealed in a clear plastic Ziploc bag. “I think so. According to the map, there should be a small stream at the bottom of this ravine. The cave entrance should be where the creek bends around to the north.”

Trent shivered and brushed snow from his hair. Though a tapestry of wildflowers heralded the arrival of spring in the lowlands, up here winter still held a firm grip. The air remained frigid, and snow frosted the surrounding mountaintops. To make matters worse, the sky had been lowering all day, and a light flurry had begun to blow.

Trent studied the narrow valley. It seemed to have no bottom. Down below, a black pine forest rose out of a sea of fog. Sheer cliffs surrounded all sides. While he had packed ropes and rappelling harnesses, he hoped he wouldn’t need them.

But that wasn’t what was truly bothering him.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be going down there,” he said.

Charlie cocked an eyebrow at him. “After climbing all day?”

“What about that curse? What your grandfather—”

A hand waved dismissively. “The old man’s got one foot in the grave and a head full of peyote.” Charlie slapped him in the shoulder. “So don’t go crapping your pants. The cave probably has a few arrowheads, some broken pots. Maybe even a few bones, if we’re lucky. C’mon.”

Trent had no choice but to follow Charlie down a thin deer trail they’d discovered earlier. As they picked their way along, he frowned at the back of Charlie’s crimson jacket, emblazoned with the two feathers representing the University of Utah. Trent still wore his high school letterman jacket, bearing the Roosevelt Union cougar. The two of them had been best friends since elementary school, but lately they’d been growing apart. Charlie had just finished his first year at college, while Trent had gone into full-time employment at his dad’s auto-body shop. Even this summer, Charlie would be participating in an internship with the Uintah Reservation’s law group.

His friend was a rising star, one that Trent would soon need a telescope to watch from the tiny burg of Roosevelt. But what else was new? Charlie had always outshone Trent. Of course, it didn’t help matters that his friend was half Ute, with his people’s perpetual tan and long black hair. Trent’s red crew cut and the war of freckles across his nose and cheeks had forever relegated him to the role of Charlie’s wingman at school parties.

Though the thought went unvoiced, it was as if they both knew their friendship was about to end as adulthood fell upon their shoulders. So as a rite of passage, the two had agreed to this last adventure, to search for a cave sacred to the Ute tribes.

According to Charlie, only a handful of his tribal elders even knew about this burial site high in the Uintas Wilderness. Those who did were forbidden to speak of it. The only reason Charlie knew about it was that his grandfather liked his bourbon too much. Charlie doubted his grandfather even remembered showing him that old deer-hide map hidden in a hollowed-out buffalo horn.

Trent had first heard the tale when he was in junior high, huddled in a pup tent with Charlie. With a flashlight held to his chin for effect, his friend had shared the story. “My grandfather says the Great Spirit still haunts this cave. Guarding a huge treasure of our people.”

“What sort of treasure?” Trent had asked doubtfully. At the time he had been more interested in the Playboy he’d sneaked out of his father’s closet. That was treasure enough for him.

Charlie had shrugged. “Don’t know. But it must be cursed.”

“What do you mean?”

His friend had shifted the flashlight closer to his chin, devilishly arching an eyebrow. “Grandfather says whoever trespasses into the Great Spirit’s cave is never allowed to leave.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if they do, the world will end.”

Right then, Trent’s old hound dog had let out an earsplitting wail, making them both jump. Afterward, they had laughed and talked deep into the night. Charlie ended up dismissing his grandfather’s story as superstitious nonsense. As a modern Indian, Charlie went out of his way to reject such foolishness.

Even so, Charlie had sworn Trent to secrecy and refused to take him to the place marked on the map—until now.

“It’s getting warmer down here,” Charlie said.

Trent held out a palm. His friend was right. The snowfall had been growing heavier, the flakes thickening, but as they descended, the air had grown warmer, smelling vaguely of spoiled eggs. At some point, the snowfall had turned to a drizzling rain. He wiped his hand on his pants and realized that the fog he’d spotted earlier along the bottom of the ravine was actually steam.

The source appeared through the trees below: a small creek bubbling along a rocky channel at the bottom of the ravine.

“Smell that sulfur,” Charlie said with a sniff. Reaching the creek, he tested the water with a finger. “Hot. Must be fed by a geothermal spring somewhere around here.”

Trent was unimpressed. The mountains around here were riddled with such baths.

Charlie stood up. “This must be the right place.”

“Why’s that?”

“Hot spots like this are sacred to my people. So it only makes sense that they would pick this place for an important burial site.” Charlie headed out, hopping from rock to rock. “C’mon. We’re close.”

Together, they followed the creek upstream. With each step, the air grew hotter. The sulfurous smell burned Trent’s eyes and nostrils. No wonder no one had ever found this place.

With his eyes watering, Trent wanted to turn back, but Charlie suddenly stopped at a sharp bend in the creek. His friend swung in a full circle, holding out his cell phone like a divining rod, then checked the map he’d stolen from his grandfather’s bedroom this morning.

“We’re here.”

Trent searched around. He didn’t see any cave. Just trees and more trees. Overhead, snow had begun to frost on the higher elevations, but it continued to fall as a sickly rain down here.

“The entrance has got to be somewhere nearby,” Charlie mumbled.

“Or it could just be an old story.”

Charlie hopped to the other side of the creek and began kicking at some leafy ferns on that side. “We should at least look around.”

Trent made a half-assed attempt on his side, heading away from the water. “I don’t see anything!” he called back as he reached a wall of granite. “Why don’t we just—”

Then he saw it, out of the corner of his eye as he turned. It looked like another shadow on the cliff face, except a breeze was combing through the valley, setting branches to moving, shadows to shifting.

Only this shadow didn’t move.

He stepped closer. The cave entrance was low and wide, like a mouth frozen in a perpetual scowl. It opened four feet up the cliff face, sheltered under a protruding lip of stone.

A splash and a curse announced the arrival of his friend.

Trent pointed.

“It’s really here,” Charlie said, sounding hesitant for the first time.

They stood for a long moment, staring at the cave entrance, remembering the stories about it. They were both too nervous to move forward, but too full of manly pride to back away.

“We doing this?” Trent finally asked.

His words broke the stalemate.

Charlie’s back stiffened. “Hell yeah, we’re doing this.”

Before either of them could lose their nerve, they crossed to the cliff and climbed up into the lip of the cave. Charlie freed his flashlight and pointed it down a tunnel. A steep passageway extended deep into the mountainside.

Charlie ducked his head inside. “Let’s go find that treasure!”

Bolstered by the bravado in his friend’s voice, Trent followed,

The passageway narrowed quickly, requiring them to shuffle along single file. The air was even hotter inside, but at least it was dry and didn’t stink as much.

Squeezing through a particularly tight chute, Trent felt the heat of the granite through his jacket.

“Man,” he said as he popped free, “it’s like a goddamn sauna down here.”

Charlie’s face shone brightly. “Or a sweat lodge. Maybe the cave was even used by my people as one. I bet the source of the hot spring is right under our feet.”

Trent didn’t like the sound of that, but there was no turning back now.

A few more steep steps and the tunnel dumped into a low-roofed chamber about the size of a basketball court. Directly ahead, a crude pit had been excavated out of the rock, the granite still blackened by ancient flames.

Charlie reached blindly to grab for Trent’s arm. His friend’s grip was iron, yet it still trembled. And Trent knew why.

The cavern wasn’t empty.

Positioned along the walls and spread across the floor was a field of bodies, men and women, some upright and cross-legged, others slumped on their sides. Leathery skin had dried to bone, eyes shriveled to sockets, lips peeled back to bare yellowed teeth. Each was naked to the waist, even the women, their breasts desiccated and lying flat on their chests. A few bodies had been decorated with headdresses of feathers or necklaces of stone and sinew.

“My people,” Charlie said, his voice croaking with respect as he edged closer to one of the mummies.

Trent followed. “Are you sure about that?”

In the bright beam of the flashlight, their skin looked too pale, their hair too light. But Trent was no expert. Maybe the mineral-rich heat that had baked the bodies had also somehow bleached them.

Charlie examined a man wearing a ringlet of black feathers around his neck. He stretched his flashlight closer. “This one looks red.”

Charlie wasn’t talking about the man’s skin. In the direct glare of the beam, the tangle of hair around the dried skull was a ruddy auburn.

Trent noted something else. “Look at his neck.”

The man’s head had fallen back against the granite wall. The skin under his jaw gaped open, showing bone and dried tissue. The slice was too straight, the cause plain. The man’s shriveled fingers held a shiny metal blade. It still looked polished, reflecting the light.

Charlie swung his flashlight in a slow circle around the room. Matching blades lay on the stone floor or in other bony grips.

“Looks like they killed themselves,” Trent said, stunned.

“But why?”

Trent pointed to the only other feature in the room. Across the chamber, a dark tunnel continued deeper into the mountain. “Maybe they were hiding something down there, something they didn’t want anyone to know about?”

They both stared. A shiver traveled up from Trent’s toes and raised goose bumps along his arms. Neither of them moved. Neither of them wanted to cross this room of death. Even the promise of treasure no longer held any appeal.

Charlie spoke first. “Let’s get out of here.”

Trent didn’t argue. He’d seen enough horror for one day.

Charlie swung around and headed toward the exit, taking the only source of light.

Trent followed him into the tunnel, but he kept glancing back, fearing that the Great Spirit would possess one of the dead bodies and send it shuffling after them, dagger in hand. Focused as he was behind him, his boot slipped on some loose shale. He fell hard on his belly and slid a few feet down the steep slope back toward the cavern.

Charlie didn’t wait. In fact, he seemed anxious to escape. By the time Trent was back on his feet and dusting off his knees, Charlie had reached the tunnel’s end and hopped out.

Trent started to yell a protest at being abandoned—but another shout, harsh and angry, erupted from outside. Someone else was out there. Trent froze in place. More heated words were exchanged, but Trent couldn’t make them out.

Then a pistol shot cracked.

Trent jumped and stumbled two steps back into the darkness.

As the blast echoed away, a heavy silence was left in its wake.

Charlie . . . ?

Shaking with fear, Trent retreated down the tunnel, away from the entrance. His eyes had adjusted enough to allow him to reach the chamber of mummies without making a sound. He stopped at the edge of the cavern, trapped between the darkness at his back and whoever was out there.

Silence stretched and time slowed.

Then a scraping and huffing echoed down to him.

Oh no.

Trent clutched his throat. Someone was climbing into the cave. With his heart hammering, he had no choice but to retreat deeper into the darkness—but he needed a weapon. He stopped long enough to pry the knife from a dead man’s grip, snapping fingers like dried twigs.

Once armed, he slipped the blade into his belt and picked his way across the field of bodies. He held his arms ahead of him, blindly brushing across brittle feathers, leathery skin, and coarse hair. He pictured bony hands reaching for him, but he refused to stop moving.

He needed a place to hide.

There was only one refuge.

The far tunnel. . .

But that frightened him.

At one point, his foot stepped into open air. He came close to screaming—then realized it was only the old fire pit dug into the floor. A quick hop and he was over it. He tried to use the pit’s location to orient himself in the darkness, but it proved unnecessary.

Light grew brighter behind him, bathing the chamber.

Now able to see, he rushed headlong across the cavern. As he reached the mouth of the tunnel, a thudding, tumbling sounded behind him. He glanced over his shoulder.

A body came rolling out of the passageway and sprawled facedown on the floor. The growing light revealed the embroidered feathers on the back of the body’s crimson jacket.

Charlie.

With a fist clamped to his lips, Trent fled into the sheltering darkness of the tunnel. Fear grew sharper with every step.

Do they know I’m down here, too?

The tunnel ran flat and smooth, but it was far too short. After only five scared steps, it widened into another chamber.

Trent ducked to the side and flattened against the wall. He fought to control his ragged breathing, sure it would be heard all the way outside. He risked a peek back.

Someone had entered the mummy chamber with a flashlight. In the jumbling light, the shape bent down and dragged his friend’s body to the edge of the fire pit. It was only one person. The murderer dropped to his knees, set down his flashlight, and pulled Charlie’s body to his chest. The man raised his face to the roof and rocked, chanting something in the Ute language.

Trent bit off a gasp, recognizing that lined and leathery face.

As he watched, Charlie’s grandfather raised a polished steel pistol to his own head. Trent turned away but was too slow. The blast deafened in the confined space. Half of the old man’s skull exploded in a spray of blood, bone, and gore.

The pistol clattered to the stone. The old man fell heavily over his grandson’s body, as if protecting him in death. A slack arm struck the abandoned flashlight, nudging it enough to shine directly at Trent’s hiding place.

He slumped to his knees in horror, remembering the superstitious warning from Charlie’s grandfather: Whoever trespasses into the Great Spirit’s cave is never allowed to leave.

The tribal elder had certainly made that come true for Charlie. He must have somehow learned about the theft of the map and tracked them here.

Trent covered his face with his palms, breathing hard between his fingers, refusing to believe what he had witnessed. He listened for anyone else out there. But only silence answered him. He waited a full ten minutes.

Finally satisfied that he was alone, he pushed back to his feet. He looked over his shoulder. The flashlight’s beam pierced to the back of the small cave, revealing what had been hidden here long ago.

Stone crates, each the size of a lunch box, were stacked at the back of the chamber. They appeared to be oiled and wrapped in bark. But what drew Trent’s full attention rose in the center of the room.

A massive skull rested atop a granite plinth.

A totem, he thought.

Trent stared into those empty sockets, noting the high domed cranium and the unnaturally long fangs. Each had to be a foot long. He had learned enough from his old earth sciences classes to recognize the skull of a saber-toothed tiger.

Still, he couldn’t help but be stunned by the strange state of the skull. He had to tell someone about the murder, the suicide—but also about this treasure.

A treasure that made no sense.

He hurried headlong down the tunnel, passed through the mummy chamber, and ran toward daylight. At the entrance to the cave, he paused, remembering the final warning from Charlie’s grandfather, about what would happen if someone trespassed here and left.

The world will come to an end.

Teary-eyed, Trent shook his head. Superstitions had killed his best friend. He wasn’t about to let the same happen to him.

With a leap, he fled back into the world.

Chapter 2

May 30, 10:38 P.M.

High Uintas Wilderness

Utah

Nothing like murder to draw a circus.

Margaret Grantham crossed the makeshift camp set up in a high meadow overlooking the ravine. She huffed a bit in the thin air, and the arthritis in her knuckles still throbbed from the cold. A gust of wind threatened to rip the hat from her head, but she held it in place, tucking away a few strands of gray hair.

All around, tents sprawled across several acres, broken up into various factions, from law enforcement to local media. A National Guard unit stood by to keep the peace, but even its presence only added to the tension.

Native American groups from across the country had been gathering steadily over the past two weeks, drawn by the controversy to the remote location, hiking or riding in on horseback. They came under the auspices of several different acronyms: NABO, AUNU, NAG, NCAI. But ultimately all the letters served one purpose: to protect Native American rights and to preserve tribal heritage. Several of the tents were tepees, constructed by the more traditional groups.

She scowled as a local news helicopter descended toward an open field on the outskirts of the camp, and shook her head. Such attention only made things worse.

As an anthropology professor at Brigham Young University, she had been summoned by the Utah Division of Indian Affairs to help mediate the legal dispute about the discovery in this area. Since she’d spent thirty years overseeing the university’s Native American outreach program, local tribes knew her to be respectful of their causes. Plus, she often worked alongside the popular Shoshone historian and naturalist Professor Henry Kanosh.

Today was no exception.

Hank waited for her at the trailhead that led down toward the cavern system. Like her, he wore boots, jeans, and a khaki work shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair had been tied back in a ponytail. She was one of the few who knew his Indian name, Kaiv’u wuhnuh, meaning Mountain Standing. At the moment, standing at the trailhead, he looked the part. Closing in on sixty, his six-foot-four frame remained solid with muscle. His complexion was granite, only softened by the dancing flecks of gold in his caramel eyes.

His dog—a stocky, trail-hardened Australian cattle dog with one blue eye and one brown—sat at his side. The dog’s name, Kawtch, came from the Ute Indian word for “no.” Maggie smiled as she remembered Hank’s explanation: Since I was yelling it at him so much as a pup, the name sort of stuck.

“So what’s the pulse like out there?” Hank asked as she joined him with a quick hug of hello.

“Not so good,” she answered. “And likely to get worse.”

“Why?”

“I was speaking to the county sheriff earlier. Tox report came back on the grandfather.”

Hank bit harder on the cigar clamped between his teeth. He never lit his stogies, just liked chewing on them. It was against Mormon practices to use tobacco, but sometimes concessions had to be made. Though full-blooded Native American, he had been raised Mormon, one of the northwestern band of Shoshone who had been baptized back in the 1800s after the Bear River massacre.

“And what was in the tox report?” he asked around his cigar.

“The old man tested positive for peyote.”

Hank shook his head. “Great. That’ll play right for the cameras. Crazed Injun hopped on drugs kills his grandson and himself during a religious frenzy.”

“For now, they’re keeping that detail under wraps, but it’ll eventually come out.” She sighed in resignation. “The reaction to the initial report was bad enough.”

County law enforcement had been the first on the scene to investigate the murder-suicide of the young Ute and his grandfather. With an eyewitness—a friend of the murdered boy—the case had been quickly closed, the bodies shipped by helicopter to the state morgue in Salt Lake City. The initial coroner’s report blamed the tragedy on dementia secondary to chronic alcohol poisoning. Afterward, op-ed pieces appeared in both local and national papers, weighing in on the abuse of alcohol among Native Americans, often reinforcing the caricature of the drunken Indian.

It wasn’t helping matters here. Margaret knew the delicacy with which such issues had to be broached, especially here in Utah, where the history of Indians and white men was bloody and strained.

But that was only the edge of the political quagmire. There was still the matter of the other bodies found down in the cave, hundreds of mummified remains.

Hank waved toward the path down to the cave. His dog took the lead, trotting with his bushy tail high. Hank followed. “The surveyors compiled their report this morning. Did you see it?”

She shook her head as she joined him on the trail.

“According to the surveyors, the cave entrance is on federal land, but the cavern system extends under reservation territory.”

“Effectively blurring the jurisdiction line.”

He nodded. “Not that it’ll make much difference in the long run. I read the brief filed by Indian Affairs. All this land, going back to 1861, was once part of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. But over the past century and a half, the borders of this reservation have waxed and waned.”

“Which means Indian Affairs can still make a strong case that the contents of the cavern belong to them.”

“That still depends on the other variables: the age of the bodies, when they were interred, and of course, if the remains are even Native American.”

Maggie nodded. It was the main reason she had been summoned here: to evaluate the racial origins of those bodies. She had already conducted a cursory physical examination yesterday. Based on skin tone and hair color and facial bone structure, the remains appeared to be Caucasian, but the artifacts and clothing were distinctly Indian. Any further testing—DNA analyses, chemical tests—were locked up in a legal battle. Even moving the bodies was forbidden due to an injunction imposed by NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

“It’s like Kennewick Man all over again,” Maggie said.

Hank raised a questioning brow toward her.

“Back in 1996, an old skeleton was discovered along a riverbank in Kennewick, Washington. The forensic anthropologist who first examined the remains declared them to be Caucasoid.”

Hank glanced to her and shrugged. “So?”

“The body was carbon-dated at over nine thousand years old. One of the oldest bodies discovered in the Americas. The Caucasian features triggered a storm of interest. The current model of North America puts early man migrating to the region across a land bridge from Russia to Alaska. The discovery of an ancient skeleton bearing Caucasoid traits contradicts that assessment. It could rewrite the history of early America.”

“So what happened?”

“Five local Indian tribes claimed the body. They sued to have the bones reinterred without examination. That legal battle is still going on a decade later. And there’ve been other cases, other Caucasoid remains found in North America, and fought over just as fiercely.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The Spirit Cave Mummy of Nevada, Oregon’s Prospect Man, Arlington Springs Woman. Most of these bodies have never been properly tested. Others were lost forever in anonymous Indian graves.

“Let’s hope we don’t end up with such a mess here,” Hank said.

By now, they’d reached the bottom of the chasm. Kawtch waited for them, panting, tongue lolling, tail still high.

Maggie grimaced at the rotten-egg smell rising from the sulfurous spring that heated the valley. Her face had already beaded up with sweat. She fanned herself with one hand.

Hank noted her discomfort and hurried them toward the cave entrance. Two National Guard soldiers stood at their posts, armed with rifles and holstered sidearms. With all the publicity, grave robbing remained a major concern, especially with the reported treasure hidden in the cave.

One of the guards stepped forward—a fresh-faced young man with rusty-blond stubble. Private Stinson had been posted here all week and recognized the two approaching scientists.

“Major Ryan is already inside,” he said. “He’s waiting for the two of you before moving the artifact.”

“Good,” Hank said. “There’s already enough tension up there.”

“And cameras,” Maggie added. “It won’t look good to have someone in a U.S. military uniform seen absconding with a sacred Native American artifact. This has to be handled with some diplomacy.”

“That’s what Major Ryan figured.” The private stepped aside—then added under his breath, “But he’s getting impatient. Didn’t exactly have kind words for what’s going on here.”

So what else is new?

Major Ryan had proven to be a thorn in her side.

Hank helped lift Maggie up to the raised entrance to the burial cave. His large hands clamped hard to her hips, triggering a flush of heat through her body, along with a surge of bittersweet memory. Those same hands had once run over her naked body, a short tryst, born of long nights together and a deep friendship. But in the end, such a relationship hadn’t suited them. They were better friends than lovers.

Still, her cheeks heated to a fierce glow by the time he joined her, hopping easily up into the mouth of the cave. He seemed oblivious to her reaction, which made her both grateful and slightly hurt.

He ordered Kawtch to stay outside. The dog hung his head with disappointment.

They set off into the tunnel as a muffled shout echoed up to them. Maggie and Hank shared a glance. Hank rolled his eyes. As usual, Major Ryan was not happy. The head of the unit had no interest in the anthropological importance of this discovery and plainly resented this assignment. Plus, she suspected there was an undercurrent of racial tension. She’d overheard a remark from him about the Native Americans gathered at the camp: Should’ve driven ’em all into the Pacific when we had the chance.

Still, she had to work with the man—at least until the treasure was secured. It was one of the reasons she and Hank had been given permission to move the totem artifact and ship it to the museum at BYU. It was too valuable to leave unguarded. Once it was gone, the amount of security could be scaled back, and hopefully some of the simmering resentment up above would calm down.

Maggie reached the main chamber, pausing at the threshold, again taken aback by the macabre spectacle of the mummified remains. Bright battery-powered lamps lit the space. Surveying strings and yellow crime-scene tape divided the chamber into sections. A cordoned-off path crossed the floor and led to the far tunnel.

She headed toward it, but her attention was again drawn to the bodies around her. Their state of preservation was amazing. The sustained geothermal heat had baked the fluid out of the remains, drying the tissues and concentrating the salts in the bodies, which acted as a natural brining agent.

For the thousandth time, she wondered why they had all killed themselves. It reminded her of the story of the siege of Masada, where Jewish rebels had committed suicide rather than succumb to the Roman legion at their gates.

Had something like that happened here?

She had no answer. It was one mystery among so many others.

A shift of shadows caught the corner of her eye. She tripped to a stop and stared toward a tangle of bodies in the far corner. A hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

Fingers tightened reassuringly. “What is it?” Hank asked.

“I thought I saw—”

From the tunnel, a shout cut her off. “ ’Bout time you got here!”

A juggling light exited the far tunnel. Major Ryan appeared with a flashlight. He was in full uniform, including his helmet, which kept his eyes in shadow. His lips, though, were tight with irritation.

He beckoned with his flashlight and swung around, leading the way back into the tunnel. “Let’s get a move on. I have the transport crate prepared as you ordered. Two of my men will assist you.”

Hank mumbled under his breath as he followed. “Hello to you, too, Major.”

Maggie paused at the mouth of the tunnel and glanced back over her shoulder. Nothing moved out there now. She shook her head.

Just a trick of light. Has me jumping at shadows.

“We’ve had a problem,” Ryan said, drawing her attention. “A mishap.”

“What sort of mishap?” Hank asked.

“See for yourself.”

Concerned, Maggie hurried after them.

What is wrong now?

11:40 A.M.

Hidden in shadows, the saboteur watched the three vanish into the tunnel. She let out a slow breath of relief, fighting back a tremble of fear. She’d almost been spotted when she drew her pack farther behind a pair of bodies.

Doubts plagued her in the dark.

What am I doing here?

She waited in the shadows, crouched as she had been since early morning. Her chosen name was Kai, which meant “willow tree” in Navajo. As her heart pounded, she sought to draw strength from her namesake, to tap into the patience of the tree, along with its legendary flexibility. She slowly stretched a kink out of her left leg. But her back continued to ache.

It wouldn’t be much longer, she promised herself.

She’d been hiding here since the crack of dawn. Two of her friends, pretending to be drunk and disorderly, had lured the guards a few yards away from the cave entrance. Using the distraction, she had ducked out of her hiding place and slipped into the tunnel behind them.

It had been a challenge to creep silently into position. But at only eighteen years of age, she was lithe, thin, and knew how to dance through shadows, a skill learned from tracking with her father since she was knee-high to him. He had taught her the old ways—before being shot while driving a cab in Boston.

The memory spiked a flare of bone-deep anger.

A year after his death, she had been recruited by WAHYA, a militant Native American rights group, who took their name from the Cherokee word for “wolf.” They were fierce, cunning, and like her, they were all young, none over thirty, all proudly intolerant of the groveling of the more established organizations.

Hidden in the dark, she let that anger stoke through her and warm away her fears. She remembered the fiery words of John Hawkes, founder and leader of WAHYA: Why should we have to wait to be handed back our rights by the U.S. government? Why bend a knee and accept bread crumbs?

WAHYA had already made headlines with a few small events. They’d burned an American flag on the steps of a Montana courthouse after the conviction of a Crow Indian for using hallucinogenic mushrooms during a religious ceremony. Only last month, they’d spray-painted the offices of a Colorado congressman who sought restrictions on the state’s Indian casinos.

But events here, according to John Hawkes, offered an even greater opportunity for exposure on the national stage. Drawn by the controversy, WAHYA would come out of the shadows and take matters into its own hands, mount a firm stand against government intrusion into tribal affairs.

A shout drew her eyes toward the deeper tunnel.

She tensed. Earlier—before the two new arrivals got here—a crash had echoed out of the back cavern, followed by a furious bout of cursing. Something had clearly gone wrong. She prayed that it didn’t pose a problem for her mission.

Especially after waiting here so long.

Kai shifted her weight to her other leg, seeking patience, waiting for the signal. She reached out and rested one hand on the backpack full of C4 explosive, already embedded with wireless detonators.

It shouldn’t be much longer.

11:46 A.M.

“What did you do?” Hank asked, his voice booming across the small cavern, full of outrage.

Maggie placed a calming hand on his shoulder. She recognized the problem immediately as she stepped into the back cavern.

Along the far wall had been stacked a pile of stone boxes, all identical, each a cubic foot in size. She had examined one yesterday. It had reminded her of a small ossuary, a stone box used to hold the bones of the dead. But until she got permission from the Native American delegation of NAGPRA, none of the boxes could be opened. Each was coated in oil and wrapped in dried juniper bark.

But circumstances had changed.

She stared down at the half-dozen boxes scattered on the floor of the cave. The one closest had broken in half, still roughly held together by its bark wrapping.

Hank took a deep breath and scowled at Major Ryan. “There’s a strict injunction against touching any of this. Do you know how much trouble this will generate? Do you know the powder keg building up there?”

“I know,” Ryan snapped back at him. “One of these numb nuts hit the stack with the corner of the transport crate when they were swinging it around. The pile came crashing down.”

Maggie glanced to the two National Guardsmen in the room. Both soldiers stared at their toes, accepting the rebuke. Between them rested a plastic green trunk, hinged open, revealing a foam-lined interior, ready to secure and transport the room’s singular treasure.

“So what do we do now?” Ryan asked sourly.

Maggie didn’t answer. Her legs drew her to the broken stone box on the floor. She couldn’t help herself. She knelt beside it.

Hank joined her. “We’d best leave it alone. We can record and document the damage, then—”

“Or we just take a peek inside.” She reached to a fractured chunk of stone, bark still stuck on it. “What’s done is done.”

A warning rumble entered Hank’s voice. “Maggie.”

She picked loose the bit of stone and carefully laid it aside. For the first time in ages, light shone into the box’s interior.

Holding her breath, she removed another piece of stone and revealed more of what was hidden inside. The boxes appeared to contain plates of metal, blackened with age. She leaned closer and cocked her head from side to side.

Strange. . .

“Is that some kind of writing on it?” Hank asked, curiosity drawing him down beside her.

“Could just be streaks of corrosion.”

Maggie reached and carefully rubbed a thumb over a corner of the surface. The black oil smeared away, revealing a familiar yellowish hue beneath. She sat back.

“Gold,” Hank whispered in hushed awe.

She looked to him, then to the wall of stone boxes. She pictured similar plates packed away in the containers. Her heart pounded faster in her throat. How much gold is here?

Maggie stood up, trying to fathom the extent of the treasure.

“Major Ryan,” she warned, “I think you and your men will be spending a lot more time down here.”

A groan escaped him. “So there’s even more gold.”

Maggie turned to the granite pillar in the center of the room. Atop it rested the massive skull of a saber-toothed tiger. All by itself, the prehistoric artifact was a valuable discovery, a spiritual totem of the slaughtered tribe—so important that the tribesmen had melted gold and coated the entire surface of the giant cat’s skull.

She stepped in a slow circle around the precious idol. A trickle of fear seeped into her. Something was wrong about all of this. She couldn’t put her finger on it but knew it to be true.

Unfortunately, she had no time to contemplate the mystery.

“Then at least get this skull out of here,” Ryan ordered. “We can deal with the boxes later. Do you want my men to help you?”

Hank stood up rather sharply. “We’ll do it.”

Maggie nodded, and the two positioned themselves on either side of the gold totem. She held out her hands, her fingers hovering over the long golden fangs.

“I’ll grab it from the front,” she said. “You cup the back of the skull. On my count. We’ll lift it and place it into the crate.”

“Gotcha.”

They both reached for the artifact. Maggie gripped the base of the fangs where they joined the skull. She could barely get her fingers all the way around the teeth.

“One, two . . . three.”

Together they lifted the skull. Even covered in gold, it was far heavier than she had imagined. She felt something shift inside, sliding like loose sand. Curiosity sparked through her, but any further examination would have to wait. They sidestepped in a typical workmen’s waltz over to the foam-lined open trunk and lowered the skull into the carrier. It sank heavily into the padding.

They both straightened, staring at each other. Hank rubbed his hands on his jeans and caught her eye. So he had felt it, too. Not just the shifting sands, but something even odder. As hot as it was in here, she had expected the skull to be warm. But despite the geothermal heat of the cavern, the surface had been cold.

Damned cold. . .

She read the unease in Hank’s eyes. It matched her own.

Before either could speak, Ryan slammed the lid over the treasure and pointed toward the exit. “My men will carry the skull out of the cave. From there, it’s your problem.”

12:12 P.M.

Crouched low, Kai watched the parade cross the field of mummies. It was led by an older woman, her hair tucked under a wide-brimmed hat. A trio of National Guard soldiers followed. Two of them hauled a green plastic trunk between them.

The gold skull, she thought.

They were taking it out, just as she’d been instructed they would. Everything seemed to be going according to plan. With the skull gone, she’d have the cavern to herself. She’d plant the charges, wait for nightfall, then sneak off. Once the place was empty, they’d blow the cavern and rebury their ancestors. WAHYA would make its point. Native Americans were done asking for permission from the U.S. government, especially for such basic rights as burying their dead.

She stared at the tall figure who trailed behind the others. Irritation flashed through her. She knew him, most Native Americans did. Professor Henry Kanosh was a controversial figure among the tribes, sparking strong reactions. No one questioned that he was a staunch supporter of Indian sovereignty, and by some estimates, his labors alone had expanded reservation territory across the Western states by a full 10 percent. But like much of his ancestral band, he had taken up the Mormon faith, shedding the old ways to join a religious group that had once persecuted and slaughtered Indians in Utah. That alone made him an outcast among the more traditional members of the local Indian tribes. She had heard John Hawkes once refer to him as an “Indian Uncle Tom.”

As the group reached the exit tunnel, Professor Kanosh pointed back. “Until we can get a handle on this, no one mention the gold we found in those boxes. Keep silent. We don’t want to trigger a gold rush down here.”

Kai’s ears pricked at his words. Gold?

According to what she’d been told, the only gold down here was coating that prehistoric skull. WAHYA had been willing to let the totem be removed from here. The artifact was scheduled to be displayed at a Native American museum, so that was okay. Plus, if the explosion buried the golden skull with the mummified bodies, someone might be tempted to do a little digging to find it, disturbing once again the resting place of their ancestors.

But if there’s more gold down here . . . ?

She waited until the others had climbed up into the tunnel, then stood up and shouldered her pack. She stepped gingerly through the field of bodies toward the back chamber. She had to see for herself. If there was a stockpile of gold hidden here, that changed everything. Like with the skull, such a mother lode could lure a slew of treasure hunters to come digging.

She had to know the truth.

Rushing to the far tunnel, she dashed down its dark throat as another worry struck her. With a new stash of gold down here, the guards would certainly return to protect it, complicating her plans to escape. She could be trapped down here. If she were caught, how could she explain being found with a backpack full of plastic explosive? She’d spend years, if not decades, in jail.

Fear burned brighter, hurrying her steps.

Reaching the cave, she flicked on a penlight and swept the beam around the small dark chamber. At first, she saw nothing, just old stone boxes and an empty pillar of granite. But a spark of reflected light drew her eyes down to her toes. A box had shattered on the floor.

She lowered to one knee and shoved her penlight closer. The box held what looked to be a stack of half-inch-thick metal plates. A corner had been rubbed off the top one, revealing gold beneath a layer of tarnish. She sat back, stunned. She swept her penlight over the wall of boxes.

What am I going to do now?

Buried underground, she had no way to radio for help. She felt overwhelmed and trapped. This decision was hers alone. Sensing the press of time and fearing the return of the guards, she couldn’t think straight. Her breathing grew harder. The darkness seemed to tighten around her.

A distant shout made her flinch. She swung toward the exit. More muffled voices followed. Someone screamed.

She sprang up.

What is going on?

Clutching her backpack, she sensed that WAHYA’s careful plan was falling to pieces. Her heart hammered with a growing panic. Fear overtook reason. She bent down, tore open the stone box, and grabbed the top three gold plates, each about eight inches square. They were surprisingly heavy, so she tucked them into her jacket and zipped them snugly next to her body.

She needed proof for John Hawkes of why she had aborted the mission. He would not be pleased, but they might find a use for the gold, especially if there was some sort of government cover-up. She remembered Professor Kanosh’s last words.

Keep silent.

She intended to do the same, but first she had to get out of here. She rushed headlong back to the main chamber. The angry voices outside grew louder. She had no idea what had triggered such a commotion but hoped it would help her escape. She knew she had to take the chance, or she’d be trapped down here when the soldiers returned.

That left only one hope, her best strength: her natural speed.

If I can bolt free and reach the woods. . .

But what stood in her way?

The booming voice of Professor Kanosh echoed down to her. “Back off!”

12:22 P.M.

Maggie stood only couple of yards from the cave entrance. They hadn’t gotten very far before the circus found them.

Bright camera lights pointed at her, pinning them all down. A step away, she recognized the chiseled features, white hair, and ice-blue eyes of an investigative reporter from CNN. The governor of Utah accompanied him. No wonder the National Guard hadn’t stopped this news crew from coming down here. Nothing like a photo op to bolster the governor’s reelection campaign.

Of course, along with the news crew came the usual suspects, dancing for the national spotlight and playing for the cameras.

“You’re stealing our heritage!” came a shout from the mass of people.

She spotted the heckler, dressed in buckskin, his face painted. He had an iPhone raised and recorded the events. She expected she’d be on YouTube within the hour.

Maggie bit her tongue, knowing any response from her would only stoke the fires here.

Moments ago, as Maggie’s group stepped from the cave and was spotted, the crowd surged past the governor, who was conducting an on-air interview. Several people were knocked down. Fights broke out, and a miniriot threatened. Major Ryan rallied a cordon of Guard soldiers, instantly stemming the tide and restoring a semblance of order.

In the meantime, Hank and the other guardsmen formed a wall between her and the pack of cameras and protesters.

Hank held up a hand. “If you want to see the artifact,” he boomed out, “we’ll show you. But then Dr. Grantham will be heading straight to BYU with it, where it will be studied by historians from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indians.”

Another angry shout cut him off. “So you’re going to do to this skull what they did to the body of Black Hawk!”

Maggie winced inside. It was a sore bit of Utah history. Black Hawk had been a Ute Indian leader who died during a conflict with settlers back in the mid-1800s. Afterward, his body had been put on display at various museums, then subsequently lost. It wasn’t until a Boy Scout, completing an Eagle project, found the skeleton in a storage facility at the Mormon Church’s historical department. The bones eventually were reburied.

Maggie had heard enough. Standing beside the green transport crate, she raised her arm. All eyes and camera lenses focused on her.

“We have nothing to hide!” she called out. “Clearly strong emotions surround this discovery. But let me assure everyone that all will be handled with the utmost respect.”

“Enough talking! If there’s nothing to hide, then show us the skull!”

This call was taken up by others and became a chant.

Maggie caught the gaze of the governor. He made a slight motion for her to obey. She suspected the golden totem had become a novelty for a majority of the crowd rather than an artifact of historical significance. So if this was a circus, she might as well be its ringmaster.

Turning her back, she bent down to the crate and struggled to undo the tight latches. Her arthritic fingers made it difficult. Plus, the mist in the valley had begun to turn into a thin drizzle. Droplets pattered against the plastic top of the crate. A hush fell over the crowd.

She finally freed the latches and hauled the top open. With the rain falling, she would not expose the artifact for longer than a minute. She stared down at the gold skull nestled in its foam cocoon. Even in the wan light down here, it shone brilliantly.

She stepped back to open the view to the cameras and the crowd, but she could not take her eyes off the skull. A misty haze coalesced over its surface. She watched a drop of rain strike the golden surface—then freeze immediately into an icy teardrop.

A collective gasp rose from the crowd behind her.

She thought they’d witnessed the event, too—then she heard a scuff of boot on rock. She glanced up to see a thin girl in black jeans and jacket come leaping out of the cave a yard away, her ebony hair fanning out like wings of a raven. She clutched an arm around her jacket, but something slipped from beneath it and hit the stone with a clanging thud.

It was one of the gold tablets.

Ryan shouted for the thief to halt.

Ignoring him, the girl turned, ready to flee toward the woods, but her foot slipped on the rain-dampened stone outside the cave. She stumbled, one arm pinwheeling for balance, sending her backpack tumbling. It rolled and came to rest near the crate. The girl came close to crashing down after it, but she gained her footing as effortlessly as a startled deer, turned on a toe, and leaped toward the edge of the forest.

Maggie remained fixed in place, crouched over the open crate to protect it. She stared down, making sure the artifact was safe. In that short time, more raindrops had fallen—and frozen—decorating the golden surface with beads of ice.

She reached and foolishly touched one, triggering a stinging snap. A painful jolt shot up her arm, but instead of being thrown back, she felt her arm pulled forward. Her palm struck the golden surface. With contact, the bones of her fingers suddenly ignited, burning through her flesh. Shock and horror clamped her throat shut. Her knees weakened.

She heard Hank shout at her.

Ryan bellowed, too.

One word cut through the agony.

Bomb!

12:34 P.M.

The brilliant flash blinded Hank. One moment he was shouting at Maggie, the next his vision went white. A clap of thunder tried to crush his skull, immediately deafening him. An icy shock wave knocked him back like a cold slap from God. He hit the ground on his back, then he felt a strange tug on his body, pulling him toward the explosion.

He fought against it, panicked down to the core. The sensation felt not only wrong, but fundamentally unnatural. He struggled against that tide with every fiber of his being.

Then it was over, as quickly as it had begun.

The inexorable pull popped away, releasing him. His senses snapped back. His ears filled with wails and screams. Images swirled into focus. He lay on his side, facing toward where Maggie had stood. He didn’t move, too stunned.

She was gone—so were the crate, the skull, and most of the cliff, including the cave entrance.

He raised up to an elbow and searched.

There was no sign of her, no charred remains, no mangled body. Nothing but a blackened circle of steaming rock.

He struggled up. Kawtch shimmied closer on his belly, cowering, tail between his leg. If Hank had a tail, he’d have done the same. He placed a reassuring palm on the dog’s side.

“It’ll be okay.”

He hoped it was true.

By now, the crowd had regained its collective footing. A panicked exodus began. The news crew retreated to higher ground, shuffled back by a cordon of National Guard. Two soldiers manhandled the governor up the trail, a precaution in case there was another attack.

Harry pictured the bag tossed by the girl. When it had landed by the crate, it had flapped open and its contents spilled out: cubes of yellowish-gray clay, embedded with wires.

Major Ryan had immediately recognized the threat.

Bomb.

But the warning had come too late for Maggie.

A knot of anger burned in the pit of his belly. He let it settle there as he pictured the attacker. From the girl’s burnished copper skin, brown eyes, and black hair, she was definitely Native American. A homegrown terrorist. As if matters here weren’t bad enough.

Numb with grief, he stumbled toward the blast zone, needing to understand. To the side, Major Ryan picked up his helmet and placed it back on his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ryan said, still dazed. “The force of this explosion should have taken out half the crowd. Including us.” He held up an open palm. “And just feel that heat.”

Hank did. It felt like a blast furnace. The air reeked of burning brimstone, turning his stomach.

As they watched, a large boulder crumbled apart within the blast zone, breaking down into smaller rocks. The face of the cliff began to do the same, disintegrating into a flow of boulders and sand. It was as if the hard granite had become loose sandstone, friable and weak.

“Look at the ground,” Ryan said.

Hank stared at the blasted rock, steaming and awash with a swirl of mist. The drizzling rain hissed and spattered as it struck. Still, he didn’t see what had Major Ryan so agitated. Then again, the man had much younger eyes.

Hank dropped to a knee to inspect the ground more closely. Then he saw it, too. He’d missed it through the swirl of steam. The stone surface wasn’t solid, more like a ground pepper—and it was moving!

The grains jittered and trembled as if they were drops of oil simmering atop a hot skillet. He watched a small pebble on the surface dissolve into coarse sand, then into a dusty powder. A drop of rain struck the ground and blasted a crater. Like a pebble hitting a still pond, ripples spread outward across the microfine surface

Hank shook his head in disbelief. Fearful, he studied where the blast zone ended and solid ground began. As he stared, the bordering edge of stone crumbled to sand, incrementally expanding the blast zone.

“It’s spreading,” Hank realized, and pushed Ryan back.

“What are you talking about?”

Hank had no answers, only a growing certainty. “Something is still active. It’s eating away the rock and radiating outward.”

“Are you nuts? Nothing can—”

From the center of the blast zone, a belch of water burst upward from below and coughed into a steaming column, rising several yards into the air. A scalding heat chased them farther off.

By the time they stopped, Hank’s skin burned, and his eyes felt parboiled. He gasped and choked out a few words.

“Must’ve cracked into the geothermal spring . . . under the valley.”

“What are you talking about?” Ryan pulled his jacket collar over his mouth and nose. The burning sulfur made even breathing dangerous.

“Whatever’s happening here, it’s not only spreading outward—”

Hank pointed to the minigeyser.

“—it’s also heading down.”

Chapter 3

May 30, 3:39 P.M.

Washington, D.C.

So much for dinner plans.

Though the explosion in Utah was only an hour old, Painter Crowe knew he’d be in his office all night. Details continued to flow in by the minute, but information remained sketchy due to the remote mountainous location of the blast. All of Washington’s intelligence communities were on high alert and mobilizing to bear on the situation.

Including Sigma.

Painter’s group operated as a covert wing for DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. His team was composed of handpicked Special Forces soldiers—those whose IQs tested off the scales or who showed unique mental acumen. He recruited and retrained them in various scientific disciplines to act as field operatives for the Defense Department’s research-and-development wing. Teams were sent out into the world to protect against global threats.

Normally, such a domestic attack as in Utah would not fall within his team’s purview, but a few anomalous details had drawn the interest of his boss, the head of DARPA, General Gregory Metcalf. Painter might have still argued against utilizing Sigma’s resources for such a messy business, but as a result of the controversy surrounding the blast, even the president—who owed his life to Sigma in the past—had personally requested their assistance in this delicate matter.

And one does not say no to President James T. Gant.

So Painter’s barbecue plans with his girlfriend were put on hold for the night.

Instead, he stood with his back to his desk and studied the large flat-panel monitors mounted on the three walls of his office. They depicted various views of the blast. The best footage came from the CNN cameras that had recorded the event. The other monitors flowed with grainy video and photos captured from cell phones, the millennium’s new digital eyes on the world.

For the hundredth time, he watched the looping feed from CNN. He saw an older woman—Dr. Margaret Grantham, an anthropologist—leaning over a green military transport crate. She undid the latches and lifted the lid. A commotion ensued, jittering the camera feed. The view swung wildly. He caught a glimpse of a figure behind the woman, fleeing away—then a blinding flash of light.

Using a remote control, he froze the footage. He stared into the heart of the blast. If he squinted, he could make out the shadow of the woman within that glare, a dark ghost within the blaze. He moved the image forward frame by frame and watched her shadow slowly consumed by the brightness, whittled away to nothing.

With a heavy heart, he hit the fast-forward button. From there, the footage became chaotic and jostled: trees, sky, running figures. Eventually the cameraman found a vantage point from which he felt safe enough to resume shooting. The view swung back to the steaming blast zone. Chaos still reigned as people fled the site. A handful of others remained below, cautiously examining the scene. Moments later, a steaming geyser erupted and chased even the stragglers away.

A preliminary report already sat on his desk from Sigma’s resident geologist. He estimated the blast had cracked into a “subsurface geothermal stream.”

Painter stared again at the geyser. It wasn’t subsurface any longer. The geologist’s assessment had included a topographic map dotted with hot springs in the vicinity. Even in the dry technical jargon of the report, Painter could sense the enthusiasm brimming in the young geologist, the raw desire to investigate the site firsthand.

While he appreciated such passion, the National Guard had the place locked down. A search was under way for the shadowy figure behind the blast. Using the remote control again, he froze the fleeting image of the bomber, blurry and indistinct, caught for less than a second.

According to interviews, it was a young woman. She had tossed a backpack full of C4, wired with detonators, then fled into the woods. The National Guard, local police forces, and agents from Salt Lake City’s FBI field office were attempting to seal off the area, but the mountainous terrain, rugged and thickly wooded, posed a challenge to finding her, especially if she knew the area.

To make matters worse, eyewitnesses reported that the woman was Native American. If true, that would mean even more political tension.

Painter caught his reflection in the monitor and searched for his own ancestry. He was a half-blooded Pequot Indian, on his father’s side, but his blue eyes and light skin came from his Italian mother. Most never pegged him as Native American, but the features were there, if you looked hard enough: the wide, high cheekbones, the deep black hair. But as he aged, those Indian traits shone more strongly.

Lisa had commented on it only last month. They had been spending a lazy Sunday in bed, reading the paper, finding no reason to get up. She had leaned on an elbow and traced a finger down his face. “You’re keeping your tan longer, and these sun crinkles are deepening. You’re getting to look a lot like that old photo of your father.”

Not exactly something you wanted to hear when lounging in bed with your girlfriend.

She had reached and fingered the single lock of white hair behind his ear, tucked like a snowy feather against the field of black. “Or maybe it’s just that you’re letting your hair grow out. I could almost tie this into a warrior’s braid.”

In fact, he hadn’t been growing his hair out. He just hadn’t had a chance to get it cut for a couple of months. He’d been spending more and more time at Sigma Command. The covert facility lay buried beneath the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, occupying what had once been bomb shelters during World War II. The location had been picked for both its convenient access to the halls of power and for its proximity to the Smithsonian Institution’s many research facilities.

It was where Painter spent most of his days. His only windows on the world of late were his office’s three giant monitors.

He turned away and crossed back to his desk, contemplating the implication of a homegrown terrorist, one with a Native American background. He seldom gave his own heritage much thought, especially after spending most of his youth in a series of foster homes. His mother, suffering from depression, had stabbed his father to death after seven years of marriage and the birth of their son. Afterward, Painter continued to have some contact with his Native American roots, fostered through the extended family of his father’s tribe. But after such a hardscrabble and chaotic upbringing, he’d grown to place more emphasis on the American part of his Native American ancestry.

A knock on his open office door interrupted him. He glanced up to see Ronald Chin, Sigma’s geology expert, standing in the doorway. “Thought you should see this.”

Painter waved the geologist inside, almost expecting him to have to duck through the doorway. Chin stood just shy of six feet, missing that mark only because he kept his head shaved to the skin. He wore a gray lab jumpsuit, zippered half down to reveal an Army Ranger T-shirt.

“What is it?” Painter asked.

“I was poring through some of the reports and came across something that could be important.” He placed a file atop the desk. “It was from a debriefing of a National Guardsman on the scene, a Major Ashley Ryan. Most of the questions centered on the identity of the bomber, along with events leading up to the blast. But Major Ryan seemed mighty agitated about the blast itself.”

Painter sat up straighter and reached to the file.

“If you look at page eighteen, I’ve highlighted the key passages.”

Painter opened the report, flipped pages, and read what was marked in yellow. There were only a handful of exchanges, but the major’s last statement sent a chill through his blood.

He read it aloud. “ ‘The ground . . . it looked like it was dissolving away.’ ”

Chin stood with hands behind his back on the far side of his desk. “From the beginning, I thought there was something odd about that blast. So I consulted Sigma’s demolition expert. He came to the same conclusion. For a detonation strong enough to break through bedrock and crack open a geothermal spring, the concussive blast radius should have been tenfold larger.”

A gruff voice interrupted from the doorway. “That’s right. Not nearly enough bang.”

Painter turned to the doorway again. Apparently Sigma’s new resident bomb expert had come to support Chin’s assessment. The man leaned against the door frame. He stood half a foot taller than Chin, and outweighed his teammate by a good forty pounds, most of it muscle. His dark hair was stubble, but he still slicked back what little was there with gel. The man wore the same coveralls as Chin, but from the bared chest, it looked like he was wearing nothing underneath.

In his right hand, he kneaded a fistful of clay.

Painter grew concerned. “Kowalski, is that the C4 from the weapons locker?”

The man straightened with a shrug, suddenly looking sheepish. “Thought I’d run a test . . .”

Painter felt a sick lurch in his stomach. Joe Kowalski was ex-Navy, hired by Sigma a few years ago. Unlike others, he was more of an adoptee than a recruit. He had been serving as muscle and team support, but Painter sensed there might be more to this guy than met the eye, a vein of sharpness hidden beneath that dull exterior.

At least he hoped so.

Painter had reviewed the man’s dossier since he’d joined Sigma—evaluating his aptitude and skills—and eventually assigned him to a field of study for which he seemed best suited: blowing stuff up.

Painter was beginning to regret that decision. “I don’t think any explosives tests will be necessary.” He tapped the file on his desk. “Have you read this field report?”

“I skimmed it.”

“What’s your take?”

“Definitely wasn’t C4.” He lifted his fist of explosive and gave it a squeeze. “The explosion was something else.”

“Any thoughts?”

“Not without examining the blast field. Collecting some samples. Otherwise I have no clue.”

He had to give Kowalski credit. It was a passable evaluation.

“Well, someone knows the truth.” Painter leaned back in his desk chair and glanced to the screen with the frozen image of the bomber. “That is, if we can find her.”

2:22 P.M.

Utah Wilderness

Kai hid in a dense thicket of mountain willows alongside a cold stream. She knelt, cupped the clear water, and drank. She ignored the nagging concerns of giardia or other intestinal parasites. Most of the flow here was fresh snowmelt. As thirsty as she was, she’d take her chances.

After drinking enough to wet her mouth and take the edge off her thirst, she covered her face with icy-wet palms. The cold helped her focus.

Still, even with closed eyes, she could not get the image out of her head. As she had fled the burial cave, she had glanced back in time to see the flash of brilliance, hear the thunderclap. Screams and cries chased her into the deeper woods.

Why did I drop my pack?

John Hawkes had sworn the C4 was safe. He’d said she could fire a bullet into one of the explosive charges, and nothing would happen. So what went wrong? Already scared, she came up with one frightening possibility. Had someone with WAHYA witnessed her flight out of the cave and telephoned in the detonation command?

But why would they do that, knowing people were around?

No one was supposed to get hurt.

She hadn’t had any time to think. For the past two hours, she’d been running headlong through the woods, as fleet-footed as any deer. She kept hidden from the air as much as possible. She’d already spotted one helicopter as it skimmed past a ridgeline. It looked like a news chopper rather than law enforcement, but it still sent her diving for the thicket.

During the remaining hours of daylight, she had to put as much distance as possible between herself and any pursuers. She knew they’d be looking for her. She pictured her face being broadcast across the nation. She was under no illusion that her identity would remain a secret for long.

All those cameras . . . someone surely got a good picture of me.

It was only a matter of time before she was caught.

She needed help.

But whom could she trust?

4:35 P.M.

Washington, D.C.

“Director, it looks like we finally caught a break.”

“Show me,” Painter said as he stepped into the darkened room, lit only by a circular bank of monitors and glowing computer screens.

Sigma’s satellite com always reminded him of the control room on a nuclear submarine, where the ambient light was kept low to preserve night vision. And like a sub’s control room, this was the nerve center of Sigma Command. All information flowed into and out of this interconnected web of feeds from various intelligence agencies, both domestic and foreign.

The spider of this particular web stood before a bank of monitors and waved Painter over. Captain Kathryn Bryant was Sigma’s chief intelligence expert and had grown to become Painter’s second-in-command at Sigma. She was his eyes and ears throughout Washington and a savvy player in the internecine world of D.C. politics. And like any good spider, she maintained a meticulous web, casting strands far and wide. But her best asset was an uncanny ability to monitor each vibrating filament of her web, filter out the static, and produce results.

Like now.

Kat had called him down here with the promise of a breakthrough.

“Give me a second to bring up the feed from Salt Lake City,” she said.

She winced slightly, placed a palm on her belly, and continued to type one-handed on a keyboard. At eight months along, she was huge, but she refused to leave early for maternity leave. Her only concession to her condition was that she’d abandoned her usual tight dress blues for a casual loose dress and jacket, and allowed the curls of her auburn hair to drape past her shoulders, rather than pinning them up.

“Why don’t you at least sit down?” he said, and pulled out the chair in front of the monitor.

“I’ve been sitting all day. Baby’s been doing a tap dance on my bladder since lunch.” She waved him closer. “Director, you need to see this. From the start of the investigation, I’ve been monitoring the local news programs over in Salt Lake City. It wasn’t difficult to hack into their computer servers and look over their shoulders as they readied their evening news broadcasts.”

“Why?”

“Because I figured it’s damn easy to hide a cell phone.”

He glanced quizzically at her.

She explained. “From the number of people who witnessed the attack, the odds were good that someone got a picture or video of the bomber. So why no footage?”

“Maybe everyone was too panicked.”

“Perhaps after the bomb, but not before. If you start with the proposition that a photo was taken, why wasn’t it turned in to the police? I followed that line of reasoning. Greed is a strong motivator.”

“You think someone hid footage of the bomber to make a few bucks.”

“To be thorough, I had to assume that. It would be easy enough to hide a phone during the chaos. Or even e-mail the footage and erase the record. So I canvassed the broadcast logs for tonight’s local news in Salt Lake City and came across a file at an NBC affiliate labeled ‘New Footage from the Utah Bombing.’ ”

Kat hit a button on the keyboard, and a video started playing, another view of the same scenario he’d watched over and over. Only this time, the bomber was caught in full view, exiting the cave, still carrying the backpack. She was moving fast, but for a fraction of a second, she stared fully at the camera.

Kat deftly captured the image and froze it. The image was grainy, but she certainly looked Native American, as the eyewitnesses had reported.

Painter leaned closer. His heart began pounding harder. “Can you zoom in?”

“The resolution’s poor. I’ll need a minute to clean it up.” Kat’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I thought we should be ahead of the curve on this. The broadcast is slated for the top of the six o’clock hour in Salt Lake City. I happened to read a draft of the accompanying copy. It’s very inflammatory. Coloring the attack as a possible resurgence of Native American militancy. In the same broadcast folder, they posted archival footage of Wounded Knee.”

Painter bit back a groan. Back in 1973, members of the American Indian movement waged a bloody siege with the FBI in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Two people were killed and many others injured in the firefight that ensued. It took decades for the tension between the tribes and the government to subside.

“Okay,” Kat said. “Program’s done rendering the sample.”

The image reappeared, a thousand times crisper. Kat manipulated the computer mouse to fill the screen with the girl’s face. The detail was amazing. Her dark eyes were wide with fear, her lips parted in a panicked breath, her ebony hair billowing out and framing distinctly Native American features.

“She’s certainly a looker,” Kat said. “Somebody must know her. It won’t take long to put a name to that pretty face.”

Painter barely heard the words. He stared at the screen. His vision narrowed, fixed upon that frozen image on the screen.

Kat must have sensed something wrong and turned to face him. “Director Crowe?”

Before he could respond, his cell phone rang. He pulled it out. It was his personal BlackBerry, unencrypted.

Must be Lisa checking about the barbecue party.

He put the phone to his ear, needing to hear her voice.

But it wasn’t Lisa. The caller’s words came rushed, breathless. “Uncle Crowe . . . I need your help.”

Shock choked him.

“I’m in trouble. So much trouble. I don’t know—”

The words suddenly died. In the background, he heard the growl of a large animal, followed by a sharp, terrified scream.

Painter gripped the phone harder. “Kai!”

The line cut off.

Chapter 4

May 30, 2:50 P.M.

Utah Wilderness

Kai backed away from the dog.

Covered in mud, soaked to the skin, it looked feral, maybe even rabid. Lips rippled back in a menacing growl, baring all its teeth. It stalked toward her, head low, tail high, ready to pounce at her throat.

A shout behind her made her jump. “That’s enough, Kawtch! Back down!”

She turned as a tall man in a Stetson rode through a thick stand of lodgepole pines atop a chestnut quarter horse. The mare moved with an easy grace, stepping nearly silently up the slope.

Kai pressed her back against a tree, ready to flee. She was sure it was a federal marshal, swore she even spotted a badge, but once he got closer, she saw it was only a compass hanging around his neck. He tucked it back under his shirt.

“You gave us quite the chase, young lady,” the man said harshly, his face still shadowed by his wide-brimmed hat. “But there’s no trail Kawtch can’t follow once he’s got his nose to it.”

The dog wagged its tail, but its sharp eyes remained locked on her. A low growl rumbled.

The stranger slid out of his saddle and dropped easily to the ground. He patted the dog to calm it as he joined her. “You’ll have to excuse Kawtch. He’s still spooked by that explosion. Got him all on edge.”

Kai didn’t know what to make of the man’s attitude. He was plainly not with the National Guard or the state police. Was he a bounty hunter? She eyed the pistol holstered on his right hip. Was that meant for her or merely a wise precaution against the black bears and bobcats that roamed the forests up here?

The stranger finally stepped out of the shadows, took off his Stetson, and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. She recognized his salt-and-pepper hair tied in a ponytail, the unmistakable hard planes of his Native American features. Shock made her momentarily dizzy. She had seen this same man in the mountain cavern only a couple of hours ago.

“Professor Kanosh . . .” His name tumbled from her lips, her voice half angry, half relieved.

One eyebrow cocked in surprise. It took him a moment to speak. He held out his hand. “I suppose, under the circumstances, Hank will do.”

She refused to take his hand. She still remembered John Hawkes’s description of the man. An Indian Uncle Tom. Of course, this traitor to his people would be working for the government to help track her down.

His arm dropped. He planted his hands on his hips, fingers brushing the top of his holstered pistol. “So what’re we going to do with you, young lady? You’ve got yourself into a mountain of trouble. All the law on this side of the Rockies is out looking for you. That explosion back there—”

She had heard enough. “It wasn’t my fault!” she blurted out, loud and angry, needing to lash out against someone. “I don’t know what happened!”

“That may be so, but someone died during that blast. A dear friend of mine. And people are looking for someone to blame.”

She stared at him. She read the well of sadness in the deep wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. He was telling the truth.

With his words, the anger inside her blew out like a doused candle. Her worst fears were now real. She covered her face, remembering the blast, the blinding flash. She slumped down the trunk of the tree and crouched into a ball. She had murdered someone.

The well of tears that had been building inside her chest since the explosion broke through the tight terror. Silent sobs rocked through her.

“No one was supposed to get hurt,” she choked out, but her words sounded meaningless even to her.

A shadow fell over her. The old man knelt down, put an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her into his side. She didn’t have the strength to fight it.

“I can only imagine what you intended with that backpack full of explosives,” he said softly. “But you were right before. That explosion wasn’t your fault.”

She resisted the comfort of his words. Before her father died, he taught her right from wrong, instilled in her the importance of responsibility. It had just been the two of them most of her life. He took two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. She spent more nights babysitting neighbors’ kids than in their own apartment. They took care of each other as well as they could.

So she could not fool herself. Whether it was by accident or not, her actions had ended up killing someone today.

“I don’t know what happened back there,” Kanosh continued, his voice warm and full of reassurance, “but it wasn’t your explosives that blew up the mountainside. I think it was that totem skull. Or something inside that skull.”

A part of her heard his words and latched onto them like someone drowning. Still, lost in guilt and grief, she feared fully accepting what he was saying.

Perhaps sensing her resistance, he spoke quietly. “I read the reports before coming here, about the rumors concerning the cave, ancient stories shared by a handful of tribal elders. According to those stories, the burial cave was cursed, and any trespass would end in ruin for all.” He let out a soft and sad snort. “Maybe someone should have listened. As much as I’ve studied our people’s past, I’ve learned how often such stories have a hard kernel of truth inside of them.”

The strength of his arms and the assurance of his words helped calm her. Tears continued to flow, but she found the strength to lift her head, needing to see his face as much as hear his words.

“So . . . so the explosion wasn’t the C4 I had in my pack?”

“No. It was something much worse. It’s why I came looking for you. To protect you.”

She pulled straighter, out of his arms. He must have read her questioning look.

“That explosion helped set off the powder keg already brewing on the top of the mountain. When I slipped away, the activists gathered on the mountaintop were already beginning to skirmish with the National Guard. Everyone is accusing the other side of all manner of crimes and atrocities. But they’re all certain about one thing.”

She swallowed, guessing what that was. “They think I’m to blame.”

“And they’re all looking for you. And as much tension and confusion as is out there, I fear they may shoot first and ask questions later.”

She shivered, suddenly cold. “What am I going to do?”

“First, you’re going to tell me what happened. Everything. Every detail. The truth is often one’s best shield.”

She didn’t know where to begin, wasn’t sure she even knew the whole truth. But the old man’s hand found hers and squeezed reassurance. She took strength from the iron in those strong fingers, so much like her father’s callused hands.

Still, her words came reluctantly at first, but before long, her story came out in a rush, both as a confession and as an act of contrition. But deep down, she also knew she needed to unload her burden onto someone else’s shoulders and share it.

3:08 P.M.

Hank watched the girl as much as he listened to her accounting of events. He kept his questions to a minimum, discovering more truth in the telling than in the facts. He saw the raw fear dim to embers in her eyes. As she told her story, he recognized her deep-seated sense of betrayal after the death of her father, needing to blame someone, to make sense of a senseless murder. Lost and scared, she found a new home, a new tribe with her militant fellow members of WAHYA.

It was a story he’d heard all too often among Native American youth: broken families, poverty, domestic abuse, alcoholism. All of it compounded and concentrated by the isolation of reservation life. It left young men and women lost and angry, looking to lash out. Many fell into lives of crime, others into profound hatred for anyone in authority. It was men like John Hawkes, the founder of WAHYA, who preyed upon those lost souls, who twisted that teenage angst to serve their own ends.

It was a path Hank knew all too well. In his teen years, he had begun selling drugs, first in school, then more broadly. He settled in with a hard crowd. It was only after one of his best friends had been killed by a strung-out junkie that he found his way back to his faith, back to the Mormon Church of his tribe. To many, it was a strange path to salvation for an Indian. He knew the disdain other Native Americans had for those tribesmen who joined the Mormon faith. But since finding his way back home, he had never been more content.

And since then, he refused to give up on anyone lost who fell across his path. It was one of the reasons he fought so hard to protect tribal rights, not so much for the tribes themselves, but to support and enrich the reservations, to build a better foundation for the youngest among them.

His own grandfather—long in his grave—had once told him: The richest harvest comes from best-tilled soil. It was a philosophy he attempted to live by every day.

As the girl finished her story, she unzipped her jacket, drawing back his full attention. She pulled out two paperback-sized plates of metal.

“This is why I left without setting the charges. I took these. As proof for John Hawkes. To show him there was more gold than just that cat skull.”

Hank’s eyes grew wide. She had stolen two of the gold plates. He had thought they were all lost, buried under half a mountain.

“May I see those?”

She offered one to him, and he examined it under a patch of sunlight. Through the black grime, he could make out lines of strange script etched into the gold. This was the sole surviving clue to the mystery of that cavern, of the mass suicide, of what was hidden so that blood had to be spilled to protect it.

But in truth, his interest went beyond the academic. His hands trembled slightly as he held the plates. While he was Native American, he was also Mormon—and as a scholar of history, he had studied his religion’s past as thoroughly as his Native American heritage. According to his faith, the Book of Mormon came from translations of a lost language inscribed on gold plates discovered by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Ever since that revelation, rumors of other caches of plates had been reported periodically across the Americas. Most of these discoveries were ruled out as hoaxes or frauds; others could never be found or substantiated.

He stared at the blurry writing, aching with both heart and head to study what was written there—but he had a more immediate concern.

The girl voiced it aloud. “What are we going to do?”

He passed the plate back to her and motioned for her to zip them both into her jacket again. He held out his arm once more, starting over. “Hank Kanosh.”

She took his hand this time. “Kai . . . Kai Quocheets.”

He frowned at her name. “If I’m not mistaken, Kai means ‘willow tree’ in Navajo. But from your accent and look, you strike me as someone from a Northeastern tribe.”

She nodded. “I’m Pequot Indian. My mother named me. She was a quarter Navajo, and according to my father, she wanted me to carry a bit of her heritage.”

Hank pointed down the mountainside. “Then let’s see how well you live up to your name, young lady. The willow is known for its resiliency in the face of strong winds. And a storm is certainly brewing around you.”

This earned him the shyest of grins.

Hank headed over to his horse. Though twenty years old, the mare was as sure-footed as any steed. He mounted up with a slight complaint from his hip.

He waved for Kawtch to lead the way. With the mountains being combed by armed hunters, he didn’t want any more surprises. Kawtch would alert him if anyone came too close.

Turning in the saddle, he offered an arm to Kai. She eyed the mare with suspicion. “You’ve never ridden before?” he asked.

“I grew up in Boston.”

“Okay then, grab my arm. I’ll pull you up behind me. Mariah won’t let you fall.”

The girl took hold of his wrist. “Where are we going?”

“To turn you in.”

Her smile vanished. The ember of fear flared brighter in her eyes. Before she could protest, he yanked her up, earning a sharp twinge from his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to face what you did.”

She climbed into the saddle behind him. “But I didn’t cause the explosion.”

He twisted to face her. “True. But, aborted or not, you were still about to commit an act of violence. There will be consequences. But don’t worry. I’ll be at your side . . . along with a slew of Native American lawyers.”

His words failed to dim the fear shining in her eyes.

There was nothing he could do about that. The sooner he got the child under custody, the safer she would be. As if it had heard his thought, the bell beat of a helicopter thundered out of nowhere. As he scanned the skies, a pair of scared arms circled his stomach. He never had a child himself, but the simple gesture warmed through him, igniting a paternal need to protect this frightened girl.

Off to the north, a small military chopper crested out of the neighboring valley and flew slowly over this one, dipping lower as it cleared the ridge, plainly searching. It looked like an angry and persistent hornet. Even without the military green of the craft, Hank recognized it as one of the Utah National Guard helicopters, even knew it was an Apache Longbow.

He took the name of the chopper as a good omen, not that either of them were Apache. He nudged his horse toward the edge of the pine forest, toward an open meadow.

Might as well get this over with.

Those arms tightened around him.

“Just stay low,” he told her. “Let me do all the talking.”

He kept Mariah to a slow walk, her flanks rolling as they headed toward the sunny spread of grass. He didn’t want anyone being surprised. Even before they reached the edge of the dense forest, the chopper banked abruptly and swung toward them.

Must have infrared aboard. Picked up our body heat.

He walked the mare out of the forest and into the open glade.

The helicopter dove toward them, nose dipping, blades cutting the air with a deafening chop. The noise was so loud, he could only stare as twin rows of grass and soil blasted upward, silently chewing across the meadow toward their position.

At last, he heard the rattle of the chopper’s chain guns.

What the hell . . . ?

Shock and disbelief froze him for a breath.

They were being fired at.

With a yank of the reins, he swung Mariah around.

A shout burst from his lips. “Hold tight!”

Chapter 5

May 30, 5:14 P.M.

Washington, D.C.

“Still no luck tracing your niece’s cell,” Kat announced as she stepped into Painter’s office. “But we’ll keep trying.”

He stood behind his desk, checking the contents of his packed briefcase. The jet was set to take off from Reagan National in thirty minutes. It would get him to Salt Lake City in four hours.

He studied Kat’s face. A single crease across her forehead expressed her worry. He shared it.

It had been over half an hour since his niece’s frantic call had suddenly cut off. He’d been unable to raise her again. Had she dropped out of cell reception? Had she turned off her phone? Kat had attempted to track the cell’s trace but clearly was having no better luck.

“And there’s still no word of her being captured out in Utah?” he asked.

Kat shook her head. “The sooner you get out there, the better. If there’s any news, I’ll call you midflight. Kowalski and Chin are already waiting topside for you.”

He snapped closed his briefcase. Before the desperate call, he had planned on putting a team out in the field in Utah. He wanted someone from Sigma on hand to determine the true nature of that strange explosion. Ronald Chin, the team’s resident geology expert, was the perfect choice—and Kowalski could certainly use some field time as a member of an investigative team.

But with that one phone call, matters had become personal.

He picked up his briefcase and headed toward the door. For the moment they were keeping knowledge of his niece to as few people as possible, maintaining a need-to-know basis. Kai already had a large enough target on her back.

As an extra precaution, Painter purposely neglected to inform his boss, General Metcalf, the head of DARPA. That slight was done to avoid a lengthy explanation as to why Painter was heading out into the field. Metcalf operated strictly by the book, an inflexible posture that continually tied Painter’s hands. And considering the personal nature of his trip, Painter figured it was easier to ask for forgiveness from his boss than to get permission.

Plus he and Metcalf had not been on the best of terms of late, mostly due to a private investigation Painter had started six months ago, an investigation into a shadowy organization that had plagued Sigma since its inception. Only five people in the world knew about this secret research project. But Metcalf was no fool. He was beginning to suspect something was up and had begun to ask questions that Painter would prefer not to answer.

So maybe it was best to get out of D.C. for a while anyway.

Kat followed Painter out into the hallway.

As they exited his office, a man stood up from a seat in the hall. Painter was surprised to see Kat’s husband, Monk Kokkalis.

Given his craggy features, shaved head, and boxer’s build, few suspected the sharp intelligence hidden behind that brutish exterior. Monk was a former Green Beret, but he’d been retrained by Sigma in the field of forensic medicine, with a secondary specialty in biotechnology. The latter came from personal experience. Monk had lost his one of his hands during a prior mission. It had been replaced by a wonder of prosthetic sciences, employing the latest in DARPA technologies. Outfitted with all manner of countermeasures, it was half hand, half weapons system.

“Monk, what are you doing here? I thought you were running shakedown tests on that new prosthesis of yours.”

“All finished. Passed with flying colors.” He lifted his arm and flexed his fingers as proof. “Then Kat called. Thought you might need an extra pair of hands in the field. Or at least a hand and one kick-ass new prosthetic.”

Painter glanced to Kat.

She kept her face fixed. “I thought you could use someone with more field experience joining you on this trip.”

Painter appreciated her offer, especially because he knew how much Kat hated Monk being away from her side, especially now that she was about to give birth to their second child. But in this case, Painter refused for a more practical reason.

“Thanks, but with the escalating tension out on that mountain, I think a smaller, more surgical team might be best.”

As he watched the crease in Kat’s forehead relax, he knew he’d made the right call. While he was gone, he fully trusted Kat to fill in as the temporary director of Sigma—and he knew that with Monk nearby, she would remain focused. Her husband was both her anchor and the very water that kept her afloat. Monk slipped his arm around his wife’s waist, resting his palm on her full belly. She leaned into him.

With the matter settled, he headed down the hall.

“Be careful out there, Director,” Monk called to him.

Painter heard the longing in the man’s voice. It seemed the offer to accompany him might not have solely originated from Kat. Likewise, Painter’s decision to leave Monk behind was not entirely for Kat’s benefit. While the man was certainly her anchor, he served that same role for one other, a teammate who was having a very tough few months.

And Painter suspected it would get worse.

5:22 P.M.

Commander Grayson Pierce did not know what to do with his mother. She paced the length of the medical exam room.

“I don’t understand why I couldn’t be there when the neurologist questions your father,” she said, angry, frustrated.

“You know why,” he replied calmly. “The social worker explained. The mental acuity tests they’re running on Dad are more accurate if family members aren’t present.”

She waved away his words as she turned and headed back across the room. He noticed her stumble, her left leg almost giving out. He shifted forward in his seat, ready to catch her, but she recovered her balance.

Leaning back into the plastic chair, Gray studied his mother. She had lost weight over the past couple of months, worn down by worry. The silk blouse hung from her thin shoulders, sagging enough to reveal one bra strap, a lack of modesty she normally would never have tolerated. Only her gray hair, done up and pinned back, remained perfect. Gray pictured her fussing over it, imagining it was the one bit of her life still under her control.

As she paced away her worry, Gray listened to the muffled exchanges going on in the exam room. He couldn’t hear any words, but he recognized the sharper notes of his father’s irritation. He feared an explosion from him at any moment and remained tense, ready to burst into the next room if needed. His father, a former Texas oil rigger, was never a calm man, prone to outbursts and sudden violence during Gray’s childhood, a temper exacerbated by an early disability that left the proud man with only one good leg. But now he was even more short-fused as advancing Alzheimer’s eroded away his self-control along with his memory.

“I should be with him,” his mother repeated.

Gray didn’t argue. He’d already had countless conversations about this with them both, trying to encourage moving his father into an assisted-living facility with a memory unit. But such attempts were met with stonewalling, anger, and suspicion. The two refused to leave the Takoma Park bungalow that they’d lived in for decades, preferring the illusory comfort of the familiar to the support of a facility.

But Gray didn’t know how long that could be sustained.

Not just for his father’s sake but also his mother’s.

She stumbled again on a turn. He caught her elbow. “Why don’t you sit down?” he said. “You’re exhausting yourself, and they should almost be done.”

He felt the frail bird bones of her arm as he guided her to a seat. He’d already had a private talk with the social worker. She had expressed concern about his mother’s health—both physical and mental—warning that it was common for a caregiver to succumb to stress and die before the actual patient.

Gray didn’t know what else to do. He had already employed a full-time nursing aide to help his mother during the day, an intrusion that was met with more resentment than acceptance. But even that was not enough any longer. There were growing issues with medications, with proper safety in his parents’ older house, even with meal planning and preparation. At night, any phone call set his heart to pounding, as he suspected the worst.

He had offered to move into the house with them, to be there at night, but so far that was a Rubicon his mother refused to cross—though Gray believed her refusal was motivated less by pride than by a feeling of guilt about imposing upon her son in such a manner. And with all the rough water under the bridge between father and son, maybe it was for the best. So for now, it remained a private slow dance between husband and wife.

The exam room door opened, drawing back his attention. He sat straighter as the neurologist entered the room. From the doctor’s stern expression, Gray anticipated that the assessment was grim. Over the next twenty minutes, Gray learned how grim. His father was sliding from the moderate stages of Alzheimer’s toward more severe symptoms. From here, they could expect to see trouble with his ability to get dressed on his own, to use the toilet. There would be more issues with him wandering and getting lost. The social worker suggested alarming the doors.

As this was discussed, Gray watched his father sitting in the corner with his mother. He looked a frail shadow of the domineering man he once was. He sat sullenly, scowling at the doctor’s every word. Every now and then a breathless “bullshit” escaped his lips, spoken so quietly only Gray heard him.

But Gray also noted his father’s hand clutching tightly to his mother’s. They held to each other, weathering as best they could the doctor’s prognosis, as if by force of will alone they could resist the inevitable decline and ensure that neither would ever lose the other.

Finally, with a rush of insurance paperwork and prescription revisions, they were set free. Gray drove his parents back home, made sure they had dinner for the night, and returned to his own apartment by bicycle. He pressed himself hard, pedaling quickly through the streets, using the exertion to clear his head.

Reaching his apartment, he took a long shower, long enough to use up all the hot water. Shivering as the water turned cold, he toweled off, slipped into a pair of boxers, and headed into the kitchen. He was halfway toward the refrigerator and the lone bottle of Heineken left from the six-pack he’d bought yesterday when he noted the figure sitting on his La-Z-Boy recliner.

He spun around. Normally he wasn’t so unobservant. It wasn’t a good survival trait for a Sigma operative. Then again, the woman, dressed all in black leather and steel zippers, sat as still as a statue. A motorcycle helmet rested on the arm of the chair.

Gray recognized her, but it did not slow his spiked heartbeat. The small hairs along his arms refused to go down. And with good reason. It was like suddenly discovering a she-panther lounging in your living room.

“Seichan . . .” he said.

Her only greeting was an uncrossing of her legs, but even this small movement suggested the power and grace stored within her whip-thin body. Jade-green eyes stared at him, taking measure of him, her face unreadable. In the shadows, her Eurasian features looked carved out of pale marble. The only softness about her was the loose flow of her hair, longer now, below her collar, not her usual severe bob. The left corner of her lips turned slightly up, amused by his surprise—or was it just a trick of those shadows?

He didn’t bother asking how she’d gotten into his locked apartment or why she presented herself in such an abrupt and unannounced manner. She was a skilled assassin, formerly employed by an international criminal organization called the Guild—but even that name wasn’t real, only a useful pseudonym to use in task-force reports and intelligence briefings. Its real identity and purpose remained unknown, even to its own operatives. The organization operated through individual cells around the world, each running independently, none having the complete picture.

After betraying her former employers, Seichan was left with no home, no country. Intelligence agencies—including those in the United States—had her on their most-wanted lists. The Mossad maintained a kill-on-sight order. But as of a year ago, she now worked for Sigma, recruited unofficially by Director Crowe for a mission too secret to be on any books: to root out the identities of the true puppet masters of the Guild.

But no one was fooled by her cooperation. It was driven by survival, not by loyalty to Sigma. She had to destroy the Guild before it destroyed her. Only a handful of people in the government knew of the special arrangement with this assassin. To help maintain that level of secrecy, Gray had been assigned as her direct supervisor and sole contact within Sigma.

Still, it had been five weeks since she’d last reported in. And then it had only been by phone. She’d been somewhere in France. So far, all she’d been hitting was dead ends.

So what is she doing here now?

She answered his silent question. “We have a problem.”

Gray did not take his eyes off her. While he should be concerned, he could not discount a spark of relief. He pictured the beer bottle in the fridge, remembering why he had needed it. He was suddenly glad for the distraction, something that didn’t involve social workers, neurologists, or prescriptions.

“This problem of yours,” he asked, “does it have anything to do with the situation in Utah?”

“What situation in Utah?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

He studied her, searching her face for any sign of deception. The bombing had certainly stirred up Sigma, and Seichan’s sudden appearance struck Gray as suspicious.

She finally shrugged. “I came to show you this.”

She stood up, passed him a sheaf of papers, and headed toward the door. Clearly he was meant to follow. He stared down at the symbol on the top page, but it made no sense to him.

He glanced up to her as she reached the door.

“Something’s stirred up a hornet’s nest,” she said. “Right here in your own backyard. Something big. It may be the break we’ve been waiting for.”

“How so?”

“Twelve days ago, every feeler I’ve been extending around the globe suddenly jangled. A veritable earthquake. In its wake, every contact I’ve been grooming went dead silent.”

Twelve days ago . . .

Gray realized that this time frame coincided with the day the Native American boy had been killed out in Utah. Could there be a connection?

Seichan continued: “Something big has piqued the Guild’s interest. And that earthquake I mentioned . . . its epicenter is here in D.C.” She faced him from the door. “Even now, I can sense unseen forces mobilizing into position. And it’s during such chaos that sealed doors get cracked open, just long enough for bits of intel to blow out.”

Gray noted her eyes sparking, her breathing sharpening with excitement. “You found something.”

She pointed again at the papers in his hand. “It starts there.”

He stared again at the symbol on the top page.

It was the Great Seal of the United States.

He didn’t understand. He flipped over the next pages. They were a mix of typed research notes, sketches, and photocopies of an old handwritten letter. Though the letter’s ink was faded, the cursive script was precise, written in French. He read the name to which the letter was addressed, Archard Fortescue. Definitely sounded French. But it was the signature at the end, the signature of the man who wrote the letter, that truly caught Gray’s attention, a name known to every schoolchild in America.

Benjamin Franklin.

He frowned at the name, then at Seichan. “What do these papers have to do with the Guild?”

“You and Crowe told me to find the true source of those bastards.” Seichan turned and pulled open the door. He noted a flicker of fear pass over her features before she looked away. “You’re not going to like what I found.”

He stepped toward her, drawn as much by her anxiety as by his own curiosity. “What did you find?”

She answered as she stepped out into the night. “The Guild . . . it goes all the way back to the founding of America.”

AN EXCERPT FROM BLOODLINE
A FORTHCOMING SIGMA FORCE NOVEL

From New York Times bestselling author
James Rollins
Comes the next Sigma Force thriller in which
a genetic mystery with ties to both ancient history and modern-day government threaten
to change the world as we know it

Coming June 2012 in hardcover from William Morrow, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter One

Fleeing from Somali pirates, a yacht bearing a young American family crashes into a jungle atoll off the coast of Madagascar, only to face a horror far more terrifying: an experiment run amok has turned the island into the bloody hunting grounds for a new form of life. The single female survivor, rescued by Captain Tucker Wayne and his advanced military team, bears a terrifying secret. She is pregnant and something is already changing inside her.

Halfway around the world, a firebombing at a fertility clinic in South Carolina reveals a group of women kidnapped from around the globe and enslaved to bear children by artificial means. One woman lives long enough to give birth to a stillborn child at a local hospital. A genetic study reveals the child bears a strange abnormality—a triple helix of DNA.

Commander Gray Pierce of Sigma Force and Captain Tucker Wayne must team up with a deadly assassin on a journey from the sparkling towers of Dubai to the crumbling ruins of an ancient French fortress, from the halls of power on Capitol Hill to the dark secrets buried at the heart of a centuries-old southern plantation, all in the quest for the truth—and to save an unborn child that may be the key to the future of mankind.

James Rollins—for the thrill of it!

Fourth of July: One Month from Now

The assassin stared through the rifle’s scope and lowered the crosshairs to the profile of President James T. Gant. He fixed his sights upon the occipital bone behind his left ear, knowing a shot there would do the most damage. Festive music and bright laughter from the holiday picnic filtered through his earpiece. He let it all fade into the background as he centered his focus on his target, on his mission.

In U.S. history, three presidents had died on July 4th.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe.

Today would mark the fourth.

Steadying his breath, Commander Gray Pierce pulled the trigger.

Present Day

June 4th, 4:32 pm

Republic of Zanzibar

The low growl warned him.

Already on edge, Tucker Wayne flattened against the stone wall of the narrow street and slid into the deeper shadows of a doorway. Earlier this morning, he had noted someone following him, watching from afar. He had managed to quickly lose the tail in the labyrinth of alleyways and crooked streets that made up this crumbling section of Zanzibar.

Who had found him?

He pressed his back against a carved wooden door. He intended to stay lost, undiscoverable, an unknown continent. He had been adrift in the world for three years, one year shy of his thirtieth circle around the sun. That’s how he ended up in the archipelago of Zanzibar, a string of sun-baked islands off the eastern coast of Africa. The name alone—Zanzibar—conjured up another time, a land of mystery and mythology. It was a place in which to disappear, to live unseen, where few questions were asked.

People knew better.

Still, he often drew second glances here, not because he was white. The ancient port of Zanzibar remained the crossroads for people of every race and color. And after a full year traveling through Africa, his skin was burnt as dark as any of the local merchants hawking wares in the spice markets of old Stone Town. And he certainly struck a tall figure, muscular—more quarterback than linebacker—though there remained a hardness to his eye that made any curious glance toward him skirt quickly away.

Instead, what attracted the most attention to him was something else, someone else. Kane brushed up against his thigh—silent now, with hackles still raised. Tucker rested a hand on his dog’s side, not to calm him but ready to signal his partner if necessary. And that’s what they were. Partners. Kane was an extension of himself.

While the dog looked like a hard-bodied, compact shepherd, he was actually a Belgian Malinois. His fur was black and tan, but mostly black, a match to his dark eyes. Under his palm, Tucker felt Kane’s muscles tense.

Half a block away, a thin shape burst around the next corner, careening in a panic. In his haste, he collided off the far wall and rebounded down the street, glancing frequently over his shoulder. Tucker sized him up in a breath and weighed any danger.

Early twenties, maybe late teens, a mix of Asian and Indian, his eyes wide with terror, his limbs and face sickly gaunt—from addiction, from malnourishment?

The runner clutched his right side, failing to staunch a crimson bloom from seeping through his white shift. The scent of fresh blood and the salty tang of fear-sweat must have alerted Kane along with the panicked tread of those bare feet.

Tucker prepared to step out of the shadowed doorway, to go to the young man’s aid—but the pressure against his legs increased, pinning him in place.

A heartbeat later, the reason became clear. Around the same corner stalked a trio of large men, African, with tribal scarring across their faces. They carried machetes and spread to either side of the empty street with the clear skill of experienced hunters.

Their target also noted their arrival—igniting his already frightened flight into a full rout—but blood loss and exhaustion had taken their toll. Within a few steps, the victim tripped and sprawled headlong across the street. Though he struck the cobbles hard, he didn’t make a sound, not a whimper or a cry, simply defeated.

That, more than anything, drew Tucker out of hiding.

That, and something his grandfather drilled into him: In the face of inhumanity, a good man reacts—but a great one acts.

Tucker tapped three fingers against his dog’s side, the signal plain.

Defend.

Kane leaped over the prone body of the young man and landed in a crouch on the far side, tail high, baring teeth, growling. The dog’s sudden appearance caused all three attackers to stop in shock, as if some demon djinn had materialized before them.

Tucker used the distraction to fold out of the shadows and close upon the nearest of the three men. In a swift capture of wrist, followed by an elbow strike to the chin, the machete ended up in Tucker’s grip. He flat-handed the man away as the second assailant swung his blade in a roundhouse swing. Rather than leaping clear, Tucker lunged forward, entering the man’s guard. He caught the deadly arm under his own and snaked his hand fully around to capture the limb and immobilize it. With his other arm, he slammed the butt-end of the steel machete into the man’s nose.

Bone cracked; blood spurted.

The man went limp, but Tucker held him upright by his trapped arm.

From the corner of his eye, the third and largest opponent backed two steps and freed a pistol. Tucker swung around, using his captured assailant’s body as a shield as shots rang out. It proved a meager defense at such close range. One of the rounds blasted through his captive’s neck, grazing Tucker’s shoulder.

Then a scream rang out.

Tucker shoved the body aside and saw Kane latched onto the shooter’s wrist, the dog’s fangs digging deep. The pistol clattered to the street. The man’s eyes were round with panic as he tried to shake the dog loose. Blood and slather flew.

Only then did the huge African remember the machete in his other hand. He lifted it high, ready to hack at the dog.

No…

“Release!” Tucker cried out.

The word was barely off his lips when Kane obeyed, letting go and dropping back on the street. But the man continued his downward swing at the dog’s neck with a savage bellow. Kane could not get out of the way in time.

Tucker was already moving.

Heart pounding, he dove for the abandoned pistol and scooped it up. He shoulder-rolled to bring the gun up—but he was too slow.

The machete flashed in the sunlight.

A shot rang out.

The man crumpled backward, half his skull shattering away. The blade flew away harmlessly. Tucker stared at his pistol. The shot had not come from his weapon.

Up the street, a new trio appeared. Two men and a woman. Though dressed in street clothes, they had the stamp of military all about them. The leader in the center held a smoking Sig Sauer.

“See to him.” He pointed to the bleeding young man on the ground. His words had a slight Texas accent. “Make sure he has the maps and get him to the ship.”

Despite the clear interest in the injured man, the leader’s gaze never unlocked from Tucker’s eyes. From the hard contours of his face, the close-cropped black hair that had gone a bit wild, and the stony edge to his storm-grey eyes, he was definitely military.

Likely ex-military.

Not good.

The leader crossed over to him, ignoring Kane’s wary growl. He offered a hand to help Tucker up.

“You’re a difficult man to find, Captain Tucker Wayne.”

He bit back any surprise and ignored the offered hand. He stood on his own. “You were following me. Earlier this morning.”

“And you lost us.” A hard twinkle of amusement brightened his eyes. “Not an easy thing to do. That alone proves you’re the man we need.”

“Not interested.”

He turned, but the man stepped in front of him and blocked the way. A finger pointed at his chest, which only managed to irritate him further.

“Listen for one minute,” the man said, “then you’re free to go.”

Tucker stared down at the finger. The only reason he didn’t reach out and break it was that the man had saved Kane’s life a moment ago. He owed him that much—and perhaps even a minute of his time.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The offending finger turned into an open palm, inviting a handshake. “Commander Gray Pierce. I work for an organization called Sigma.”

He scowled. “Never heard of it. That makes you what? Defense contractors, mercenaries?” He made his disdain for that last word plain.

That dark twinkle grew brighter as the other lowered his arm “No. We work under the auspices of DARPA.”

He frowned, but curiosity kept him listening. DARPA was the Defense department’s research-and-development administration. What the hell was going on here?

“Perhaps we can discuss this in a quieter location,” the commander said.

By now, the other pair had gathered up the wounded young man, shouldered him between them, and were headed toward the port. Faces had begun to peer out of windows or through peek holes in doors. Other figures hovered at the corners. Zanzibar often turned a blind eye to most offenses, but the gunfire and bloodshed would not be ignored for long. As soon as they left, the bodies would be looted of anything of value, and any inquiries would be met with blank stares.

“I know a place,” Tucker said and led the way.

4:44 pm

Gray sipped a hot tea sweetened with cardamom. He sat with Tucker Wayne on a rooftop deck overlooking the Indian Ocean. Across the waters, the triangular sails of old wooden dhows mixed with cargo ships and a smattering of tourist yachts. For the moment, they had the hotel’s tiny restaurant to themselves.

At the foot of the building, a small spice market rang and bustled, wafting up with a mélange of nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, and countless other spices that had once lured sultans to this island and had fueled an active slave trading industry. The islands had exchanged hands many times, evident in its unique blend of Moorish, Middle Eastern, Indian, and African traditions. Around every corner, the city changed faces and remained impossible to categorize.

The same could be said for the cipher who was seated across the narrow table from him. Gray placed his cup of tea onto a cracked saucer. A heavy-bodied fly, drawn by the sweet tea, came lumbering down and landed on the table. It crawled toward his cup.

Gray swatted at it—but before his palm could strike the table, fingers caught his wrist, stopping him.

“Don’t.”

Tucker gently waved the fly off, then returned to his thousand-yard stare out to sea.

Gray rubbed his wrist and watched the fly, oblivious to its salvation, buzz lazily away.

Tucker finally cleared his throat. “What do you want with me?”

Gray focused back to the matter at hand. He had read the former Army Ranger’s full dossier, knew his strengths and weaknesses, but the man remained a mystery. Like why he had abruptly left the service, disappearing immediately after being discharged, leaving behind a uniform full of medals, including a purple heart after one of the nastiest firefights in Afghanistan—Operation Anaconda at Takur Ghar. He had been only nineteen at the time.

Gray cut to the chase as time was running out. “Captain Wayne, during your military career, your expertise was extraction and rescue. Your commanding officer claimed there was no one better.”

The man shrugged.

“You and your dog—”

“Kane,” Tucker interrupted. “His name’s Kane.”

A furry left ear pricked at his master’s voice. The dog lay sprawled on the floor, looking drowsy, inattentive, but Gray knew better. His muzzle rested against the toe of Tucker’s boot, ready for any signal from his partner. Gray had read Kane’s dossier, too. The war dog had a vocabulary of a thousand words, along with the knowledge of a hundred hand gestures. The two were bound together more intimately than any husband and wife—and together, with the dog’s heightened senses and ability to maneuver in places where men could not, the two were frighteningly efficient in the field.

Gray needed that expertise.

“There’s a mission,” he said. “You would be well paid.”

“Sorry. There’s not enough gold in Fort Knox.”

Gray had prepared for this attitude, readied for this eventuality. “Perhaps not, but when you left the service, you stole government property.”

Tucker faced him, his eyes going diamond hard. In that gaze, Gray read the necessity to speak warily, to play the one card he had with great care.

“It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and man hours to train a war-service dog,” Gray said. He dared not even glance toward Kane; he kept his gaze fixed on Tucker.

“Those were my man hours,” Tucker answered darkly. “I trained both Kane and Abel. And look what happened to Abel. This time around, it wasn’t Kane who killed Abel.”

Gray had read the brutal details in the files and avoided that minefield. “Still, Kane is government property, military hardware. Complete this mission and he is yours to keep, free and clear.”

Disgust curled a corner of his lip. “No one owns Kane, Commander. Not the U.S. government. Not special forces. Not even me.”

“Understood, but that’s our offer.”

Tucker glared at him for a long breath—then abruptly leaned back, crossing his arm, his posture plain. He was not agreeing, only willing to listen. “Again. What do you need me for?”

“An extraction. A rescue.”

“Where?”

“A coastal compound. In Somalian territory.”

“Who?”

Gray sized up his opponent. The detail he was about to reveal was known only to a handful of people high in the government. If word should somehow reach her captors—

“Who?” Tucker pressed.

Kane must have sensed his partner’s growing agitation and let out a low rumble, voicing his own complaint.

Gray answered them both. “We need you to rescue the president’s daughter.”

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author JAMES ROLLINS holds a doctorate in veterinary medicine and runs his own practice in Sacramento, California. An amateur spelunker and a certified scuba enthusiast, he’ll often be found either underground or underwater.

www.jamesrollins.com

Also by James Rollins

Subterranean

Excavation

Deep Fathom

Amazonia

Ice Hunt

Sandstorm

Map of Bones

Black Order

The Judas Strain

The Last Oracle

The Doomsday Key

Altar of Eden

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Schematics provided and drawn by Steve Prey.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Epub with Bonus Material Edition December 2011 978-0-06-219162-5

THE DOOMSDAY KEY. Copyright © 2009 by James Czajkowski.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rollins, James, 1961–

The doomsday key: a Σ sigma force novel / James Rollins.— 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-06-123140-7 (hardcover)

1. Code and cipher stories. I. Title.

PS3568.O5398D66 2009
813’ .54—dc22                                                      2009003164

09 10 11 12 13 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 9780061791413 (international edition)

The Last Oracle Copyright © 2008 by James Czajkowski

Excerpt from The Devil Colony Copyright © 2011 by James Czajkowski

Excerpt from BloodLine Copyright © 2012 by James Czajkowski

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