Sigma Guide
Author: James Rollins
Date: 2012-06-05 05:13:58+00:00
Keywords: Thriller; Adventure; Suspense; Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Science Fiction; Reference
Description: This has been a project that has been under wraps for about a year. I worked alongside fellow thriller writer Greg Cox to concoct this dossier of all things Sigma. It’s a comprehensive and detailed journal that is full of details, factoids, summaries, and NEW information about the Sigma universe. I always wanted to build such a reference for myself—but then thought, why not share it?
Rights: Copyright © 2012 by James Rollins

THE
SIGMA FORCE
DOSSIER

Compiled by Special Analyst Greg Cox

PRIORITY
CLEARANCE
REQUIRED

CONTENTS

Introduction

What Is Sigma Force?

Operative Profiles

Allies and Enemies

Case Histories

Facing the Future

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Sigma Force. You have been recruited to assist Sigma, a top-secret arm of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in its ongoing mission to investigate and secure dangerous new (or ancient) technologies that may impact the national security of the United States. The following information, which is strictly classified, is intended to provide you with the necessary background to fully comprehend Sigma’s past, present, and future operations. In some instances, particularly sensitive pieces of information have been [REDACTED] in the interests of security and/or diplomacy. This intel can only be found in the complete case histories by chief archivist and historian James Rollins.

[Note: the contents of this dossier are not to be shared with suspected members of The Guild or any other terrorist organizations.]

For convenience’s sake, certain crucial missions have been assigned codenames and abbreviations as follows:

- Sandstorm (abbreviated “SS”).
- Map of Bones (MOB)
- Black Order (BO)
- “Kowalski’s in Love” (KiL)
- The Judas Strain (TJS)
- The Last Oracle (TLO)
- The Doomsday Key (TDK)
- “The Skeleton Key” (TSK)
- The Devil Colony (TDC)
- Bloodline [BL]

Concise summaries of each mission appear in Section 4 of this dossier.

1
WHAT IS SIGMA FORCE?

In mathematics, the Greek letter Σ (sigma) represents the sum of all parts, the unification of disparate sets into a whole, but, unknown to the world at large, it is also the emblem for a very special organization. Sigma operates as the covert military arm of DARPA, the Defense Department’s high-tech research and development division. Sigma’s primary objective is search and seizure: responding with surgical precision to obtain, protect, or neutralize potentially dangerous new research and discoveries. In a world where the slightest edge in technology can be the difference between victory and disaster, Sigma Force works to maintain of the technological superiority of the United State of America—at all costs.

To carry out its mission, Sigma employs ex-Special Forces operatives, often with genius IQ’s, who are handpicked in secret and put through rigorous doctoral programs to give them the technical know-how to function in the field as both brain and brawn. Or, as Sigma agents are sometimes described, “scientists with guns.”

The idea behind Sigma was first conceived by the Jasons, a scientific think tank formed back during the Cold War. Leaders in many fields, including several Nobel winners, met regularly to advise the U.S. military on scientific matters and brainstorm new tactical innovations. It was at one such meeting that Archibald Polk, a noted professor of neurology, suggested the formation of a militarized team of investigators to act as field agents for DARPA. (In a curious twist, Polk’s daughter Elizabeth is currently dating Sigma operative Joe Kowalski.) Polk’s brainchild was implemented and made reality by Sean McKnight, who founded Sigma Force and personally recruited its first agents, including Painter Crowe, who later took Sean’s place as director of Sigma Force. Painter remains in charge to this day.

Sigma’s headquarters were originally located in Arlington, Virginia, a few miles from the Pentagon, but after Sigma was infiltrated by the Guild, Painter had Sigma Command moved to a more secure and convenient location: beneath the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Built in 1847, the imposing Gothic Revival structure was the first Smithsonian building and boasts anachronistic red sandstone towers, spires, and battlements, making it a literal fortress. Officially known as the Smithsonian Institution Building, “the Castle” currently houses the Smithsonian’s administrative offices and visitor center. Unknown to the many tourists who visit the Castle, however, the old WWII-era bomb shelters beneath the building have been converted into Sigma’s top-secret command center.

The location was picked for its convenient access to both the halls of power and the Smithsonian’s many museums and research facilities. It would have been too expensive (and redundant) to duplicate all of the Smithsonian’s varied facilities, which cover a wide range of disciplines, so many of Sigma’s members work at laboratories throughout the Smithsonian, which has become both a resource and a cover.

Sigma’s own subterranean warren include offices, laboratories, a communications nest, a fully-equipped medical unit, a morgue, pathology suites, detention cells, and even a gym and locker rooms. The director’s office features three large wall-mounted plasma screens that serve as his windows on the world. The main conference room, built after a fire-bombing damaged the original facilities [TLO], features a circular table with computer stations before each seat. The table can accommodate up to a dozen people. Painter personally designed the conference room so that he would have room enough to pace around the table and observe those gathered around it.

The satellite surveillance com is the nerve center of Sigma Command. Lit only by a circular bank of monitors and glowing computer screens, it resembles the control room of a nuclear submarine, with the ambient light kept low to preserve night-vision. All information flows in and out of an interconnected web of feeds from both domestic and foreign intelligence agencies.

Protocol Alpha, a sophisticated fail-safe measure, protects Sigma’s secrets in the event of an attack by a hostile force, as has happened on at least one occasion [TLO]. A gaseous accelerant is fed into the air supply, achieving critical levels within fifteen minutes, at which point the automated system ignites sparks throughout the base, triggering a firestorm across all levels of Sigma Command. The flash fire lasts only seconds, searing every surface within the concrete bunkers, before sprinklers douse the flames immediately. It is hoped that this protocol will never need to be implemented again, but Sigma is prepared, just in case.

Σ

Sigma operates under the auspices of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: a research-and-development arm of the Defense Department. Established in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik into space, DARPA funds cutting-edge research across a wide range of fields, from robotics to aerospace to biological warfare defenses to the latest in artificial intelligence and information technology. Their goal: creating and preventing strategic surprise. Or, more bluntly, get there first.

DARPA is based in Arlington, Virginia, which was home to Sigma Command as well, before Sigma relocated to Washington, D.C. In order to evolve with the times and the challenges of a changing world, DARPA has frequently restructured itself. At present, the agency is comprised of six “official” divisions: the Defense Sciences Office, the Information Innovation Office, the Microsystems Technology Office, the Strategic Technology Office, and the Tactical Technology Office. Each office acts as an umbrella for the various areas of focus under its respective purview.

Current projects include efforts to develop an unmanned anti-submarine warfare vessel, an acoustic gunshot detection system designed to locate snipers, a high-energy laser defense system, a battery-powered human exoskeleton, advanced infrared rifle scopes, virtual reality contact lenses, a revolutionary new fire suppression method, promising new counter-measures for radiation poisoning, new cyber-security defenses, innovative high-pressure materials, a legged robot (nicknamed “Cheetah”) capable of galloping at speeds of up to eighteen miles per hour, and even a thought-operated prosthetic limb not unlike the one worn by Sigma agent Monk Kokkalis. DARPA also sponsors a variety of competitions designed to foster high-tech innovation and creativity, such as the DARPA Grand Challenge, in which driverless robotic vehicles compete for a cash prize.

In these and other ambitious endeavors, DARPA strives to anticipate future threats and opportunities in order to ensure that America is never caught off-guard by revolutionary new discoveries—and that its enemies will be. More information about DARPA’s current initiatives can be found at their official website: www.darpa.mil.

This website makes no mention of Sigma Force, which remains a closely-guarded secret even within DARPA. Only a handful of highly-placed individuals are aware of Sigma’s existence, including the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current director of DARPA: General Gregory Metcalf.

Σ

The Guild is Sigma’s dark shadow and recurring nemesis. Although Sigma’s operations have brought them into conflict with a variety of criminal and terrorist organizations, including the Imperial Dragon Court [MOB], neo-Nazis [BO] , and former KGB agents [TLO], the Guild remains Sigma’s most persistent—and enigmatic—adversary. Painter Crowe has made ferretting out the true origins and objectives of the Guild his top priority.

The full extent of the threat posed by the Guild has only gradually come to light, and much remains unknown—including the true name of the organization. “The Guild” is just a convenient nickname for a secret society whose actual name (if any) is known only to its shadowy leaders. As far as Sigma knows, the term was first coined by a now-deceased British SAS officer who had a run-in with the group. The name was later adopted (mockingly?) by Guild operatives, who are deliberately kept in the dark as to their own leadership. The Guild patterns its structure on terrorist cells; information is passed between teams on a strictly need-to-know basis, with each cell under independent authority, answerable only to the upper Echelon, whose identities are fiercely guarded—even from their own people. Global in scope, the Guild has moles planted in governments, intelligence agencies, think tanks, universities, and research facilities throughout the world, all the better to seize control of any valuable new discoveries.

To carry out its objectives, the Guild employs handpicked mercenaries with Special Forces experience. Drummed out of the Forces, most of these soldiers could now be found in various mercenary and paramilitary groups throughout the world, where they had grown harder and more ruthless. Like Sigma Force, the Guild recruits only the smartest and most resourceful warriors, but, unlike Sigma, the Guild has another crucial criterion: its soldiers need to have no qualms about killing—or torture.

Σ

Sigma’s understanding of the Guild has deepened over the years. In the beginning, they were only a whisper. When Painter Crowe first encountered them during his quest for the lost city of Ubar, he believed them to be nothing more than an international criminal network born from the ashes of the former Soviet Union and run by an unholy alliance of Russian mobsters and ex-KGB agents. Little was known about them except that they were merciless, well-funded, and apparently driven by profit, not ideology. Competing with Sigma, they hunted and stole emerging technologies—military, biological, chemical, nuclear—and sold them to the highest bidder, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah in the Middle East, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, and the Shining Path in Peru. Painter was shocked to discover that the Guild had even planted moles in DARPA—and Sigma [SS].

Upon taking command of Sigma, Painter spent his first eight months restructuring the organization and shoring up security in order to keep it from being compromised again. As there had been no way of telling what intel had been gleaned, sold, or spread by the Guild, everything had to be purged and rebuilt from scratch. Not until Painter was confident that Sigma was secure did he start sending agents out into the field again, where they immediately crossed paths with the Guild once more.

An investigation into the theft of sacred relics found a Guild assassin, Seichan, playing various factions against each other for her own purposes. At the time, the Guild’s interest in the matter appeared to be strictly mercenary; Sigma eventually discovered that the Guild had been hired by [REDACTED] to infiltrate an ancient enemy. The Guild, it was reported, were ruthless, but they were also efficient, honored their contracts, and got the job done—by any means possible. As far as anyone knew, the Guild’s only motives were wealth and power [MOB].

Roughly a year later, the Guild opted out of the “Darwin Bible” affair. It is unclear why they considered this matter riskier than their earlier campaigns, if that was truly the reason they declined to get involved [BO].

Not long after, a shadowy terrorist organization funded research into a dangerous transgenic rabies virus which was tested on a remote Indian village in Brazil. There is reason to suspect that this organization was the Guild, although they kept a fairly low profile in that affair [KiL].

By contrast, the Guild was more aggressive than ever in their pursuit of an ancient virus—and its cure. The so-called “Judas Strain” brought the Guild directly into conflict with Sigma Force, with casualties on both sides. Much of the conflict played out in Southeast Asia, where the Guild was found to have deep ties in China and North Korea [TJS].

Fourteen months later, the Guild and Sigma clashed once more over a long-lost biological weapon. It was evident that the Guild was fixated on forgotten knowledge and science, particularly of ancient Egypt origins. During this operation, [REDACTED] was exposed as part of “Echelon,” the elusive puppet-masters behind the Guild. Painter also discovered that Echelon members bore a cryptic tattoo at the back of their skulls, although the meaning of the symbol, which resembled [REDACTED] remained obscure [TDK].

By now, Painter had come to suspect that the Guild was more than just an international syndicate out to profit from the sale of stolen technology. His fears deepened when [REDACTED] provides him with evidence that the Guild dates back to the birth of America—and beyond. When the Guild resurfaces in pursuit of long- buried nanotechnology, even more ominous clues arise regarding their true origins [TDC]. Painter now has reason to believe that, rather than merely being the mutant offspring of the Soviet Union as he first believed, the Guild may actually be controlled by a small group of aristocratic families who have been accumulating wealth, power, and influence over the centuries—or millennia. And that one of those families, possibly the last surviving “True Bloodline,” is nestled deep within American history and politics, making it all but impossible to uproot.

Many mysteries remain about the Guild’s ultimate nature and agenda, and some of Sigma’s theories about this relentless foe have yet to be confirmed, but one thing seems certain.

A war is coming.

2
OPERATIVE PROFILES

The following profiles contain background info and biographical data on key personnel. Due to the hazards and complications of the job, this data is subject to dramatic (and sometimes terminal) changes at any moment.

CROWE, PAINTER

Current rank: Director, Sigma Force.

Background: Navy Seal.

Specialties: micro-surveillance and computer engineering.

Physical description:

Black hair. Ice-blue eyes. Broad shoulders. The granite planes of Painter’s face betray his partial Native American heritage. Tanned and sporting brown contact lenses, he can pass for a full Native American, but long hours working in Sigma’s underground command center have taken a toll on his tan in recent years. A streak of white hair over one ear is a souvenir of a near brush with death [BO]. In his forties, he is about a decade older than most of his agents.

History:

Painter’s father, Jolon, was a Pequot Indian, raised on the Mashantucket reservation in Connecticut, who eventually abandoned the reservation to seek his fortune in New York City, where he met and married a fiery Italian woman named Isabella, who sadly suffered from depression. An unhappy marriage led to a drinking problem, but Jolon sometimes took his young son hunting on tribal lands, where Painter learned how to bait a trap and lure prey, skills that would prove valuable in his later career. The elder Crowe also taught his son a few Pequot chants in a feeble attempt to pass on some tribal traditions. Painter learned the chants, whispering them to himself while his parents fought, and still uses them to focus his mind and calm his spirit, despite not knowing or caring what they mean. His parents’ troubled marriage came to a violent end when, seven years after Painter’s birth, Isabella stabbed Jolon to death. With his mother on Death Row, Painter grew up in a series of foster homes where he quickly learned it was best to keep silent and stay unseen. Over the years, Painter has maintained loose connections to his father’s tribe and tangled extended family, but has come to think of himself as more American than Native-American.

Distinguishing himself as a Navy Seal, Painter broke his leg during a mission in Iraq. While recuperating, he was recruited into Sigma by Sean McKnight, who taught him the value of honing his mind as well as his body, and who put Painter through a grueling academic boot camp that made his Navy Seal training seem easy by comparison. Painter became one of the very first Special Forces veterans recruited for Sigma. His specialized training has allowed him to develop various high-tech devices employed by Sigma operatives, including subdermal transceivers capable of tracking persons of interest without their knowledge, miniature electronic bugs the size of grains of rice, and night-vision goggles (hooked up to parabolic mikes) that can record up to an hour of digital surveillance footage.

Painter served as a field agent for several years before replacing McKnight as director of Sigma Force when his mentor was promoted to head of DARPA [SS]. Although he has successfully guided Sigma through numerous crises, Painter often chafes at not being in the field himself--and wishes that his subterranean office had a window. Following the tragic death of Sean McKnight, Painter was offered the post of director of DARPA by the President himself, but chose to remain in charge of Sigma in order to provide continuity of leadership during a challenging time [TLO]. He occasionally suffers from migraines and heartburn.

His current top priority: to uncover the true origins and agenda of The Guild, no matter what it takes.

Relationships:

Painter has been romantically involved with Dr. Lisa Cummings since they shared a perilous adventure a few years ago [BO]. He has recently taken a paternal interest in his college-age “niece” Kai Quocheets after extricating her from a dangerous situation [TDC]. (He’s actually her half-uncle on her father’s side, but it’s easier just to be “Uncle Painter.”) Kai is currently attending classes at Brigham Young University.

Both of his parents are now deceased.

PIERCE, GRAYSON

Current rank: Commander

Background: Army Ranger

Specialties: biology and physics.

Physical description:

Lanky black hair. Stormy blue eyes. His hard, angular face, strong jaw, and cleft chin hint at his stony Welsh heritage, while his ruddy complexion is all Texas, burnt by the sun over the dry hills of Brown County. He remains fit and athletic into his thirties. His voice retains a hint of Texas twang.

History:

“Gray” Pierce is a study in contradictions. Raised Roman Catholic, he still feels strong stirrings of faith, but has also delved extensively into other religions and philosophies, including Buddhism, Judaism, and Taoism. A born leader, he nevertheless has issues with authority and does not always play well with others. Impulsive and not inclined to hesitate when action is called for, he has a wild streak and prefers to trust his instincts rather than rely on systematic, dogged methodology. As a Sigma force operative, he struggles to find a balance between daring and recklessness.

His father, Jack, was a Texas oilman who lost part of one leg in an industrial accident, leaving him angry, bitter, and prone to drink. His mother, Harriet, was an accomplished biologist who taught first at a Jesuit high school in Texas and later at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. His grandfather, who died while Gray was away at boot camp, gave Gray a rosary that he often carries to this day—despite his leanings toward Taoism.

At sixteen, Gray spent a summer working as a rig hand at a Texas oil field to please his father. But, in time, Jack’s temper and drinking drove Gray out of the house. He joined the Army at eighteen and the Rangers at twenty-one. Court-martialed for striking a superior officer (with good reason), he spent a year in Leavenworth prison, where he occupied himself by studying both advanced chemistry and Taoism. This evidence of a unique mind and personality intrigued Painter Crowe, who recruited Gray for Sigma Force.

While pursuing a dual degree in biology and physics (a curriculum he designed himself), Gray also spent four months at a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. Fascinated by the Taoist principle of yin and yang, he still searches, with mixed results, for harmony and balance.

Relationships:

Gray has made an effort to reconcile with his father, who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. His mother recently passed away. His younger brother, Kenny, is an electrical engineer who runs a computer start-up company in Silicon Valley, California. He and Gray were never close, and Kenny now blames Gray for [REDACTED].

Gray enjoyed an on-and-off romance with Lieutenant Rachel Verona, an Italian policewoman stationed in Rome, but the inevitable strains of a long-distance love affair eventually drove them apart. His relationship with the enigmatic assassin Seichan is even more complicated. He often wears a silver dragon pendant she left for him after their first encounter and he has since become her primary contact at Sigma. After years of mutual attraction and suspicion, they recently acted on their feelings following the shocking events of [REDACTED]. Whether this connection will last, or if they can ever truly trust each other, remains to be seen.

Gray’s best friend is fellow agent Monk Kokkalis, who was recruited into Sigma around the same time that Gray was. More easy-going and by-the-book, Monk tempers Gray’s steely, somewhat driven nature and can often get through to his friend when no one else can. They have proven to be a good team.

KOKKALIS, MONK

Current rank: Staff Sergeant (medic)

Background: Green Beret

Specialties: forensic medicine and biotechnology.

Physical description:

Bald. Brown eyes. Five foot three, stocky, with a boxer’s build, a shaved head, and bushy brows, Monk stands out in a crowd. His craggy features have been compared to a pit bull’s. This brutish exterior is not a pretty sight, especially when he flashes a wicked grin, but can come in handy when he needs to intimidate someone. Like his friend and frequent partner, Grayson Pierce, he is in his thirties.

Perhaps his most notable feature is his prosthetic left hand. After losing his hand to [REDACTED], he was fitted with a state-of-the-art prosthetic. A marvel of advanced DARPA technology, it incorporates direct peripheral nerve control through the titanium wrist contact points. Sophisticated mechanics and actuators allow precise moments and sensory input, while the stumped end of his wrist is encased in a polysynthetic cuff, surgically attached to the stump and wired into nerve bundles and muscle tendons. In addition, the prosthetic’s wireless capacity allows him to operate the hand remotely, which can be useful for party tricks or impressing superstitious natives. An explosive charge, equivalent to a flash-bang grenade, is blended into the plastic sleeve of the outer hand, making the explosive almost impossible to detect. False palm prints can be laser-printed onto the hand to fool biometric palm readers/security devices. Outfitted with all manner of high-tech countermeasures, the prosthetic is part hand, part weapons system.

History:

Monk carries three old bullet wound scars, on his shoulder, upper leg, and chest, from his former career as a Green Beret, where he became the only survivor of a deadly ambush in Afghanistan. During his recovery stateside, he was recruited by Sigma due to his genius-level IQ and put through a doctoral program in forensic medicine with a secondary specialty in biotechnology. It was around this time that he first met Gray Pierce.

Monk’s injuries in Afghanistan were just the beginning; he sometimes seems the team’s designated punching bag. Besides losing his hand, he was once believed to have been killed in action during a mission in Indonesia [TJS]. It was only later discovered that he had been taken captive by [REDACTED] and used as a guinea pig for experimental brain surgery, resulting in amnesia [TLO]. Although he has gradually regained much of his memory, beginning with his oldest daughter’s name, he is still haunted by gaps in his memory. He has also been shot a few more times [TLO, TDC].

Despite his traumatic injuries, Monk remains an affable, optimistic sort whose favorite movie is The Sound of Music. A man of action, not prone to introspection, he feels naked without a shotgun and has a talent for seeing the big picture, as opposed to losing the forest for the trees. As a rule, he prefers to keep his feet on solid ground, and often reminds his fellow agents that there was a reason he joined the Army and not the Navy or Air Force.

Placed on disability for a year after his escape from his captors, he was anxious to get back into the field. The birth of his second child, however, has forced him to reconsider his priorities and he has recently submitted his resignation for the sake of his family [TDC]. It is unclear at this time if he will reconsider or if Painter Crowe will accept his resignation.

Relationships:

Monk is married to fellow Sigma agent Kathryn Bryant. The two began dating after working together on a mission [MOB] and got married shortly after Kat became pregnant with their first daughter, Penelope Anne [BO]. Their second daughter, Harriet, was born recently [TDC].

BRYANT, KATHRYN

Current rank: Captain

Background: Naval Intelligence

Specialties: intelligence services and coordination

Physical description:

Auburn hair. Green eyes. A tall, athletic woman possessed of leonine grace, “Kat” Bryant tends to present herself conservatively in tight dress blues, always professional and spit-and-polished. A soft Southern accent colors her voice, but she can drop it like a dime if necessary. She is thirty-something.

History:

Kat often wears a jeweled pin on her lapel: a tiny gold frog enameled in emerald. The pin was a gift from an amphibious team she once joined on a recon mission in Kabul, back when she was working for naval intelligence. Two members of the team were captured and threatened with decapitation. Kat managed to rescue the hostages, but, in the process, another member of the team was shot and killed by an enemy guard. She wears the frog pin in memory of her fallen comrade.

But not all of her missions were so traumatic. A few years prior to the Kabul tragedy, she worked with Monsignor Vigor Verona to catalogue evidence against a Nazi war criminal trading in stolen artwork. This connection would later prove useful to Sigma Force [MOB].

Recruited by Sigma due to her advanced knowledge of micro-surveillance and counterintelligence, she embarked on a study of engineering as well. Her background in intelligence, and rumored involvement with black-ops, initially engendered some distrust on the part of her fellow agents, but she quickly proved her worth in the field, where her ability to focus on even the smallest of minutiae often allowed her to spot vital details others might miss. She is also fluent in Russian—and handy with knives, swords, and lock picks.

Kat was shot three times during a gun battle at [REDACTED], but has since recovered [BO].

Following the brutal death of [REDACTED], Kat rose to the position of Painter Crowe’s second-in-command, where she handles mission coordination, arranging transportation, permits, cover stories, and other vital logistical matters for agents in the field. With her background in intelligence, she has proved skilled at enlisting foreign aid and orchestrating cross-satellite surveys almost anywhere in the world. When Painter himself is in the field or otherwise unavailable, she holds down the fort at Sigma Command and oversees all current operations.

A savvy player in the internecine world of Washington politics, she is Painter’s eyes and ears throughout D.C., where she maintains an intricate web of contacts, casting strands far and wide. And, like any good spider, she has an uncanny ability to monitor each vibrating filament, filter out the static, and get results. If anything, her keen attention to detail is even more valuable now than it was in the field, even though she occasionally misses getting her hands dirty.

Relationships:

Kat is married to Sigma agent Monk Kokkalis. They have two daughters, Penelope Anne and Harriet. Given Monk’s history of traumatic injuries, she often worries when he is in the field, and would prefer that he took less dangerous assignments, but she also fears that he will never truly be happy working a desk job.

CUMMINGS, LISA

Background: Medicine

Specialties: Human physiology, marine sciences.

Physical description:

A lean, long-legged, blue-eyed blonde from Southern California, Dr. Lisa Cummings looks equally at home on a beach, a boat, or in a lab. Now in her thirties, she sometimes wonders whatever happened to the footloose, bikini-clad young woman she once was.

History:

Unlike most of her colleagues, who were deliberately recruited and trained by Sigma, Lisa got involved with Sigma by accident. After spending five years aboard a research vessel, studying the effects of high-pressure systems on deep-sea divers [as documented in Deep Fathom by James Rollins], she accepted a National Science Foundation grant to study the physiological effects of low-pressure systems on mountain climbers. While taking part in an oxygen-free ascent of Everest, she was drafted into investigating a mysterious medical emergency at a remote Buddhist monastery in Nepal, where she met Painter Crowe and found herself caught up in a perilous adventure involving renegade Nazi scientists, genetic mutation and [REDACTED].

Surviving that harrowing experience [BO], Lisa began working with Sigma, where she applies her medical expertise to good effect, investigating and responding to medical crises and mysteries throughout the world. Her knowledge of physiology allows her to read bodily responses as accurately as most lie detectors—and, unlike a lie detector, she knows how to provoke a telltale reaction as well. Needless to say, this talent can come in handy while working undercover for Sigma.

After living a rather rootless, nomadic life earlier, she appears to have finally found a home—and a calling--in Sigma Force.

Relationships:

For most of her life, Lisa avoided serious attachments, protecting her heart behind an armor of professionalism and casual dalliances. She enjoyed a brief romance with Jack Kirkwood, an astronaut turned treasure hunter [Deep Fathom], but that quickly turned to a lasting friendship instead. She has been romantically involved with Painter Crowe since their first adventure together [BO]. This has become her longest and most serious relationship to date.

Her younger brother, Josh, is a mountaineer and rock-climber.

KOWALSKI, JOE

Rank: Seaman.

Background: U.S. Navy.

Specialty: demolitions.

Physical description:

The walking definition of a jarhead, Kowalski is a thick-limbed ape of a man with a Navy anchor tattooed on his right bicep and a pug nose knotted by an old break. He has stubble-cut dark hair and stands approximately six-foot-fix. His chest is crisscrossed with old scars. His brown eyes don’t seem to hold hidden depths. A Bronx accent betrays his roots.

History:

More of an adoptee than a recruit, Kowalski was brought aboard Sigma as muscle after accidentally getting sucked into an operation in Brazil [KiL]. Prior to that incident, Kowalski had served on a Navy research submarine, the USS Polar Sentinel, during a particularly perilous mission to the Arctic [see Ice Hunt by Sigma historian James Rollins].

No genius, he comes off as distinctly less intellectual than the average Sigma operative, but may be (somewhat) sharper than he appears. He sometimes provides useful ideas and insights simply by not over-thinking things. (“Maybe you just connect the dots.”) Originally employed as security, he has since shown a natural talent for demolition and explosives (translation: he likes blowing things up). His first major operation for Sigma involved a global search for a missing chapter from Marco Polo’s book [TJS] and he has since played a supporting role in most Sigma Force endeavors. A sailor at heart, he prefers the open seas to long flights. He is fond of booze, sweets, cigars, good shoes . . . and possibly teddy bears, although he insists the latter are for his girlfriend.

He has an aversion to apes—for good reason [KiL].

Relationships:

Kowalski is involved with Elizabeth (“Liz”) Polk, a brilliant young anthropologist whom he first encountered during a Sigma operation a few years ago [TLO]. Their relationship baffles and bemuses his colleagues, but at least she has him showering more frequently.

MCKNIGHT, SEAN (deceased)

Rank: Lieutenant Commander

Background: Navy Seal

Specialties: physics and information technology

Physical description:

Tall, broad-shouldered, with graying red hair, Dr. Sean McKnight was pushing sixty at the time of his death.

History:

The visionary founder and original director of Sigma Force, Sean was an ex-Navy Seal who went on to earn a Ph.D in both of his specialties. He worked for DARPA for over twenty years and personally recruited Painter Crowe into Sigma. He was later promoted to head of DARPA after the events of [REDACTED]. Killed in action by [REDACTED] during an assault on Sigma Command [TLO], he was replaced by General Gregory Metcalf.

Sigma Force remains Sean McKnight’s enduring legacy.

Relationships:

Sean was a close friend of Painter Crowe. When Painter replaced him as director of Sigma Force, Sean sent him a crate of antacids. Painter thought it was joke . . . at first.

JENNINGS, MALCOM

Background: forensic pathology

Specialties: research and development

Physical description:

In his sixties, Dr. Jennings has a hip, professorial air, with graying hair, dark olive skin, and glasses.

History:

The head of Sigma’s R&D division, Malcom has been with Sigma since before Painter Crowe took over as director. His experience as a forensic pathologist still comes in handy, especially when an unknown cause of death needs to be determined, a deadly virus is spreading [TJS]—or when someone is murdered on Sigma’s doorstep [TLO]. He works full-time at Sigma Command and seldom ventures into the field.

METCALF, GREGORY

Rank: General

Background: U.S. Army

Physical description:

An African-American in his mid-fifties, General Metcalf remains as sturdy and solidly-built as when he was a linebacker for West Point’s football team. Only his salt-and-pepper hair and reading glasses betray his age.

History:

Metcalf took over as head of DARPA following the untimely death of Sean McKnight [TLO]—and after Painter Crowe turned down the job. Inflexible and by-the-book, he often butts heads with Painter, who sometimes feels that his new boss is tying his hands. Nevertheless, Painter has learned not to underestimate the general’s formidable intelligence, even if he sometimes finds it politic to go behind Metcalf’s back—and ask for permission after the fact.

Gossip has it that only the President’s support has allowed Painter to keep his job, but that support definitely has it limits. It remains to be seen how effectively Metcalf and Crowe will be able to work together in the future—especially now that Painter’s investigations into the Guild are leading Sigma into shark-infested political waters.

3
ALLIES AND ENEMIES

For better or for worse, Sigma Force does not exist in a vacuum. Invariably, other individuals take an interest in, or may become involved with, the various mysteries, conspiracies, and menaces that fall under Sigma’s purview. Some may fall into Sigma’s orbit by accident, while others may actively involve themselves in these affairs, but, over the years, a few key players have crossed the team’s path on multiple occasions—and may well do so again.

The following profiles are intended to familiarize you with these individuals.

VERONA, VIGOR

Physical description:

Monsignor Vigor Verona is a wiry Italian priest in his sixties, with curly salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly-trimmed goatee. He prefers to dress casually in jeans, a tee-shirt, and cardigan, but will don his formal black cassock when the occasion calls for it. He remains fit and active for a man his age, despite a serious injury a few years ago.

History:

Vigor is a distinguished Vatican official and scholar who has assisted Sigma Force on several occasions. His knowledge of archaeology and ancient history, along with his intimate connections within the Catholic Church, has proven invaluable in the past.

A popular professor at Gregorian University in Rome, he headed the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology for several years. Although deeply devoted to the Church, he maintains a rigorous scientific outlook. A placard above his office door bore the same inscription that once graced Plato’s door: “Let no one enter who does not know geometry.”

Unknown to his adoring students, Verona had another vocation as well: for over fifteen years he served as spy for the Vatican. His archaeological studies provided the perfect cover for him to travel widely—and report back to the Church’s covert intelligence service.

He first joined forces with Sigma to investigate a brutal attack on a German cathedral—and the theft of a sacred relic: the bones of the Magi [MOB].

Later, after being promoted to prefect of the Vatican’s Secret Archives, he provided Sigma with a complete dossier on an obscure Polish priest who was not nearly as ordinary as he appeared [BO].

He next assisted Sigma in a quest for the secret diary of Marco Polo—and the cure to a terrifying epidemic [TJS].

The following year, he was a severely injured by an explosion in Saint Peter’s Basilica, placing him in a coma. Although he suffered a brain fracture, he eventually awoke from the coma, not long after Sigma traced the explosion to [REDACTED]. He is expected to make a fully recovery [TDK].

Vigor Verona sees himself a secret warrior, standing between the Vatican and the world. His lifelong battle to defend the Church has sometimes led him to fight beside Sigma Force and its agents—and may do so again.

Relationships:

Vigor is devoted to his niece, Lieutenant Rachel Verona, whom he practically raised. His older sister is Rachel’s mother. His mother, Camilla, escaped from Austria during WWII before settling in Italy.

Prior to his involvement with Sigma Force, he had worked with Kathryn Bryant to track down a ring of international art thieves, back when Kat was employed by Naval Intelligence. They were reunited three years later when he first called on Sigma for assistance [MOB].

VERONA, RACHEL

Physical description:

An attractive Italian woman in her thirties, Lieutenant Rachel Verona bears a resemblance to a young Audrey Hepburn, with snowy skin, high cheekbones, and caramel-colored eyes. She used to keep her ebony hair short, but has started wearing it longer.

History:

After Rachel’s father died in a traffic accident when she was fifteen, she was largely raised by her doting uncle Monsignor Vigor Verona, who instilled in her a lasting love of history and art. Under his tutelage, she spent many summers exploring Rome’s museums and staying with the nuns of Saint Brigida, not far from Gregorian University where her uncle taught archaeology.

Although he might have preferred her to take her vows and follow him into the Church, Vigor recognized that she was too much of hellion to make a proper nun and encouraged to pursue her own passions. After earning a graduate degree in psychology and art history, she was recruited straight out of the university by the Carabinieri Corps, Italy’s military police force, where she spent another two years at officer’s training college, studying international law, before going to work for Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale, a special unit devoted to combatting the theft of precious art and antiquities.

She first encountered Sigma Force when her uncle recruited her to help investigate the theft of the Magi’s bones. Agents from Sigma, including Gray Pierce, joined her in tracking down the international conspiracy behind the crime [MOB].

Rachel was not involved with Gray’s next mission, but they did rendezvous in Poland afterwards [BO].

Roughly two years later, Rachel contacted Sigma again when her uncle was injured in a bombing. Joining forces with Sigma once more, she barely survived an adventure that found her working beside both Gray and a possible romantic rival, Seichan [TDK].

Rachel continues to work for the Carabinieri, protecting Rome’s cultural treasures.

Relationships:

Rachel had an on-again, off-again romance with Gray Pierce. Although they had deep feelings for each other, and even talked marriage on occasion, the demands of separate careers on separate continents ultimately persuaded them to go their separate ways. At present, both are resolved to move on with their lives, although who knows what will happen if and when they are ever thrown together again?

With regards to her family, Rachel has a mother and older sister who do not really understand her the way her uncle does. She had more in common with her grandmother Camilla, a feisty survivor of World War II who thought that a woman was naked without a gun.

The other great love of Rachel’s life is her silver Mini Cooper convertible, which she drives at alarming speeds, much to the dismay of her passengers.

SEICHAN

Physical description:

An attractive Eurasian woman in her early thirties, the enigmatic assassin known only as Seichan has almond-shaped green eyes flecked with gold. Her slender features are a mix of Vietnamese and European, possibly French, with tanned bronze skin and full lips. Her dark hair was once cut in a severe bob, but she has gradually let it grow longer. Her slim, lithe figure is both hard and soft. She often dresses in black and favors tight motorcycle gear. Her favorite color is silver, as indicated by her tastes in jewelry and automobiles. Her trademark silver dragon pendant resembles one once worn by her mother.

History:

Sometimes an ally, sometimes an adversary, Seichan is a dangerous mystery whose true allegiances are always in doubt. Her full story has yet to come to light, but this much is known:

Seichan can barely remember her parents. Her most vivid memory: a weeping woman being dragged away from her by men in military uniforms. Her mother? Probably, but not even Seichan knows for sure. The identity of her father remains unknown. Raised in a squalid orphanage outside Seoul, Korea, she suffered starvation, slaps, beatings, and violations even more intimate before ending up on the streets. She spent her younger years as a half-feral teen, running the slums of Bangkok and the alleys of Phnom Penh. Survival on the streets required vigilance, cunning, and brutality—talents that attracted the attention of the Guild, who trained her to be an assassin in their employ.

Her first known encounter with Sigma came when she clashed with Gray Pierce at an infectious disease lab in Fredericks, Maryland, where she appeared to be on a mission of sabotage. Seichan shot Gray on that first meeting, but later claimed to know that he was wearing a suit of liquid body armor—as was she. Afterwards, she left him a keepsake: a curled-dragon pendant on a silver chain [MOB].

Shortly thereafter, their paths crossed again during a mission involving the stolen bones of the Magi. At the time, she appeared to be working as mercenary for Guild, playing Sigma against [REDACTED] and demonstrating a talent for double and triple crosses. She and Gray eventually joined forces against a common enemy, but based their temporary partnership on expedience and mutual distrust [MOB].

Gray was still wearing her dragon pendant a year later when she left him a teasing note in Copenhagen, informing him that she and the Guild were staying clear of the matter at hand. “WATCH YOUR BACK. KISSES,” she wrote, and, for once, she appeared to be telling the truth. That was the end of her involvement in the affair [BO].

She was not heard from again until another year later, when she turned up unexpectedly at Gray’s parents’ doorstep, wounded and on the run from The Guild, with whom she’d had a serious difference of opinion. Enlisting Monsignor Vigor Verona as well, she convinced Gray to help her save the world from [REDACTED]. Taken into custody afterwards, she escaped with the help of Gray, but not before Sigma surgically planted a tracking device inside her abdomen [TJS].

Sigma tracked her for a year, hoping she would lead them deeper into the secrets of the Guild. But she found out about the tracker and had it removed before joining with Gray and Rachel Verona to uncover a Guild plot to [REDACTED]. At the time, it was uncertain if she was attempting to rejoin the Guild or infiltrate it, although Gray wanted to believe they were on the same side—despite her often ruthless methods [TDK].

Her pursuit of the shadowy leaders of the Guild led her next to the catacombs of Paris, where a close call with a doomsday cult bought a cryptic clue to the Guild’s true origins [TSK], which she later shared with Gray and Sigma Force [TDC].

At present, Seichan remains on the run, pursued by both the Guild and intelligence agencies throughout the globe, including those of the United States. The Mossad maintains a shoot-to-kill order on her and rest of the world regards her as a wanted terrorist and assassin-for-hire. Only Sigma sees her as an asset, albeit one of questionable loyalty.

Among her bad habits: a tendency to smoke when stressed.

Relationships:

A loner and survivor by nature, Seichan resisted her attraction to Gray Pierce for years, even as she occasionally teased and taunted him. They have saved each other’s lives on numerous occasions—and double-crossed each other almost as often. At least four years after she first shot him in the chest, they finally acted on their long-simmering feelings for each other [TDC], but what kind of future can a Sigma agent and a fugitive assassin have?

4
CASE HISTORIES

As Sigma Force knows too well, history has a way of impacting the present just when you least expect it, and a working knowledge of past events can sometimes be the difference between life and death. The following operations represent key moments in Sigma’s own history—and may hint at the shape of things to come.

Mission Designation: Sandstorm

Duration: November 14—December 4.

Key Locations: England, Oman.

The iron camel—actually a meteorite fragment shaped like a camel—sat harmlessly in the British Museum until a freak electrical storm causes it to explode. When radiation readings indicate that the explosion was caused by antimatter inside the camel, Sigma dispatches agents Painter Crowe and Coral Novak to find the origin of the antimatter, which could provide a potentially unlimited source of energy.

The explosion exposes another artifact hidden inside an ancient sandstone statue: a hollow iron heart containing an unknown liquid. An inscription on the heart points to the lost city of Ubar, a legendary realm said to have disappeared beneath the sands of Arabia sometime around 300 A.D. Posing as civilian scientists, Crowe and Novak infiltrate an archaeological expedition led by a British noblewoman, Lady Kara Kensington, and a brilliant archaeologist, Dr. Safia al-Maaz, in hopes that a centuries-old trail will lead them to the fabled city—and a lost treasure trove of stabilized antimatter.

But Sigma has competition. A team of Guild mercenaries, led by Painter’s former partner, is also in pursuit of the antimatter and will stop at nothing, including murder, sabotage, and kidnapping, to claim the prize for their own purposes. To further complicate matters, a third party enters the chase: a mysterious sisterhood of Bedouin women whose abilities seem almost supernatural.

A chain of ancient clues, dating back to the fall of Ubar, guide the rival factions across Oman in a desperate race against time. The iron heart leads to the tomb of Nabi Imran, the Virgin Mary’s father, where an ancient compass points to the rugged Dhofar Mountains and the Tomb of the prophet Job, where a hidden bust of the Queen of Sheba points to a remote location deep in the vast desert known as the Rub’ al Khali or “Empty Quarter.”

As a mega-sandstorm of Biblical proportions converges on the region, the lost city is discovered—and Crowe and his allies must find a way to avert an antimatter explosion that could lay waste to the entire Arabian Peninsula.

Assessment:

The Sandstorm affair marks Sigma’s first verifiable confrontation with the Guild, whom is discovered to have planted moles deep within both Sigma and DARPA. This is Painter Crowe’s last operation as a field agent before taking command of Sigma. His first priority as director would be to rebuild Sigma from the ground up in order to root out any lingering Guild infiltrators.

Σ

Reality Check.

Sigma operations often require a broad knowledge of matters scientific, historical, and even paranormal. The following briefings address major topics relevant to this operation. Sigma personnel are encouraged to further explore these topics if they are so inclined.

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Ubar: “The Atlantis of the Sands.”

For years, the lost city of Ubar was regarded as more myth than history. Supposedly a fabulously rich and magnificent city, founded by the descendants of Noah, it was said to have been wiped out by God and buried forever beneath the deserts of Arabia. The Koran refers to it as “Iram,” a city of magnificent towers and pillars.” The One Thousand and Nights described it as a fabled “City of Brass,” and T. E. Lawrence (a.k.a. “Lawrence of Arabia”) famously called it “The Atlantis of the Sands.”

In fact, the term “Ubar” is now believed to have referred to a people or area as opposed to being the name of city. Nevertheless, numerous explorers and archaeologists have searched for the remains of the city that inspired the legends. In the early 1990s, satellite imagery provided by NASA and others indicated the one-time presence of a major trading center at the convergence of several long-buried caravan routes in a particular region of the Empty Quarter. Excavations at Shisur, a remote village in Oman, uncovered the ruins of an ancient fortress, dating back more than two millennia, which had partially collapsed into a large sinkhole. The age and location of the site, as well as the way it had been essentially swallowed up by the desert, led some to identify this fallen fortress as the basis for the fantastic legend of the lost city, although this has since been disputed by other scholars (who do not have access to Sigma Forces classified mission logs).

To date, there has been no “official” acknowledgement of the startling discovery made by Sigma beneath the ruins at Shisur . . . .

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Antimatter: Not Just Science Fiction!

When matter collides with antimatter, they annihilate each other in an explosion that generates energy. Unfortunately, antimatter is rarely found on Earth, difficult to store due to its tendency to annihilate itself upon contact with matter, and incredibly expensive to produce, which is why both Sigma Force and the Guild were highly-motivated to locate a hitherto-unknown supply of antimatter—as well as the secret to storing it in a stable form.

Antimatter is created naturally by high-energy particle collisions, as when cosmic rays strike Earth’s atmosphere. The existence of antimatter, which is composed of subatomic antiparticles, was predicted mathematically as far back as 1928, and a type of antiparticle called a positron was first detected in 1932. Today, labs such as CERN in Geneva, Switzerland and Fermilab near Chicago, Illinois use particle accelerators to generate various forms of antimatter, but the process remains extremely inefficient, time-consuming, and ridiculously expensive. It has been estimated that, at current rates, it would take CERN four billion years to produce even a gram of antimatter, which explains why we don’t have antimatter-powered cars, bombs, or spaceships yet!

Most of the universe is made of matter, not antimatter. Why this is so, when the Big Bang theoretically created equal quantities of both, remains a puzzle, although recent experiments conducted by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN suggest that it may have something to do with varying rates of subatomic decay. CERN hopes to reach a more definite conclusion in the next few years.

(By coincidence, particle physicists rate the certainty of possible discoveries according to a “sigma” scale, with a five-sigma rating indicating that the results cannot be dismissed as a statistical error. As far as we know, there’s no relation between this rating system and a certain covert team of killer scientists.)

Although still extremely rare compared to matter, antimatter can be found in space as well. Scientists have detected a huge cloud of antimatter, roughly 10,000 light-years across, near the center of our galaxy, as well as a thin belt of antiprotons in Earth’s own Van Allen radiation belt. New equipment recently installed on the International Space Station is currently searching the universe for more signs of antimatter, perhaps even antimatter comets or galaxies.

The existence of antimatter comets has been theorized, but not proven. Sigma has reason to believe that an antimatter comet struck Siberia in 1908, resulting in the celebrated Tunguska event. Discoveries made during the Sandstorm operation support this scenario, but the theory is currently disputed by the mainstream scientific establishment.

We know better.

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Stranger than Fiction:

Perhaps the most startling element of this operation is Sigma’s encounters with the Rahim, an enigmatic tribe of female warriors who claimed descent from the Queen of Sheba herself. Eyewitness reports, verified by Sigma agents Crowe and Novak, confirm that the Rahim seemed to possess abilities that bordered on the magical, including the ability to render themselves invisible (or effectively so), influence the minds of both humans and animals, and even reproduce without any need for men.

A scientific theory accounting for the women’s seemingly supernatural abilities was developed by Novak on the basis of her observations in the field, as well as analysis of the women’s blood. According to her theory, the Rahim’s abilities derive from [REDACTED.]

Mission Designation: Map of Bones

Duration: July 22—August 18. Eight months after SS.

Key Locations: Germany, Italy, Egypt, France, Switzerland.

A massacre at a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, in which dozens of civilians are somehow electrocuted after taking Communion, spurs Monsignor Vigor Verona, a secret agent for the Vatican, to enlist Sigma Force’s help in tracking down the killers--who have also stolen a priceless relic: the bones of the Magi, the Wise Men who attended Christ as a child. Vigor also drafts his niece, Lieutenant Rachel Verona, who finds herself targeted by assassins.

It is soon discovered that the Communion wafers had been tainted by monatomic (or “m-state”) gold, a superconductive form of the metal with highly unusual properties. Evidence points to the involvement of the Imperial Royal Dragon Court (Ordinis Draconis), a cult of depraved aristocrats who see themselves as destined to rule over the masses of mankind—and who will stop at nothing to gain the legendary secrets of the Magi.

Painter Crowe dispatches Gray Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, and Kat Bryant to Cologne, where they rendezvous with their Italian allies—and come under attack by a strike force led by Baron Raoul de Sauvage of the Dragon Court and his apparent ally, Seichan. Surviving the assault, the Sigma team discovers that the stolen “bones” were actually forged of a unique amalgam of m-state metals crafted by an ancient order of mages dating back to [REDACTED]. They realize that the Dragon Court (and possibly the Guild) are searching for the lost knowledge of the mages in order to reshape the world in their own image.

A series of clues, hidden in the 14th century by the Knights Templar, lead the competing factions on a perilous treasure hunt that stretches from the catacombs of Rome to the lost tomb of Alexander the Great to a papal palace in Avignon, France, which might hide the ultimate secret of the Magi: the key to the primordial light of Creation itself. Along the way, Sigma and the Dragon Court clash violently, with bloody results, while Seichan and the Guild pursue their own cryptic agenda, working both with and against Sigma for their own purposes.

Assessment:

This is Sigma’s first major operation under the command of Painter Crowe, taking place approximately eight months after he discovered that Sigma had been infiltrated by the Guild [SS]. It also provides a crucial test of Gray Pierce’s leadership abilities as he leads his own team in the field, often cut off from Sigma Command. On a more personal note, the battle against the Dragon Court costs Monk his left hand, even as it leads to his relationship and eventual marriage to Kat. This affair also marks the beginning of Gray’s intermittent romance with Rachel, as well as Sigma’s continuing involvement with the Vatican and Monsignor Verona. Note: the writings of Marco Polo, which first point Vigor towards the secret order of the Magi, would figure prominently in a later Sigma operation [TJS], while evidence of an ancient order of magi will be uncovered during yet another crisis [TDC].

Decapitated by the death or capture of its leaders, including [REDACTED], the Dragon Court has not resurfaced since their defeat in Avignon, but Seichan and the Guild remain very much on Sigma’s radar.

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Who were the Magi, really?

Despite millions of Nativity scenes and Christmas pageants, little is truly known of “the wise men from the East” said to have visited Christ as child. The Magi are mentioned only in the Gospel of Matthew, which does not reveal their names, their country of origin, or even how many wise men there actually were! The fact that the magi gave three gifts to the Christ child—gold, frankincense, and myrrh--has given rise to the tradition that there were only three Magi as well, but, as Vigor Verona observes, this is not supported by Matthew. Nor does the Bible indicate that the Magi found the baby Jesus in the manger; a close reading of the text suggests that Magi’s visit may have taken place a few years later, when Jesus was a toddler.

Where exactly in the east the Magi hailed from remains up to debate, with Babylon, Persia, Arabia, and India all nominated by various scholars and traditions. The word magi is the plural of magus, a Latin word which ultimately derives from the Old Persian name for a priestly caste associated with astrology. Over time, the word has come to refer to astrologers, sorcerers, and wise men in general. Christmas carols notwithstanding, the Bible does not refer to the Magi as the “three kings” of song.

There are conflicting stories and traditions regarding the Magi’s ultimate fate. In Marco Polo’s famous Travels, first published around 1300 A.D., the celebrated explorer claims to have visited the tombs of the three Magi in Persia. Polo also recounted a legend that the Christ child had gifted the Magi with a mysterious stone that summoned flame from the heavens when tossed into a well. It was up to Sigma Force to discover the truth behind this legend.

By contrast, the bones of the Magi are believed by some to have been found in Palestine by Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, almost a thousand years before Polo’s historic travels. These relics gradually made their way to Constantinople and eventually to the Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral in Germany—until they were stolen by the Dragon Court under circumstances that have yet to be revealed to the general public.

Interestingly, an 8th-century parchment, long buried and forgotten in the Vatican archives, purports to be the Magi’s own account of their journeys and claims that they belonged to an ancient order of mystics descended from Adam’s third son, Seth. Known as the “Revelation of the Magi,” this document was only recently translated into English after languishing in obscurity for generations. It is unknown whether Monsignor Verona has had a chance to examine it—or whether it is of interest to Sigma or the Guild.

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Liquid armor: the future of personal protection?

When Gray Pierce first encounters Seichan at Fort Detrick, Maryland, she shoots him in the chest. His life is saved by a revolutionary new form of body armor that is currently being developed by the U.S. Military.

This innovative technology is based on a shear-thickening fluid (STF) originally developed by the University of Delaware. The STF contains fine silica particles which clump together on impact, providing protection from fast-moving projectiles, but which remain loose and flexible otherwise.

Modern body armor, which employs ceramic plates and sturdy Kevlar fibers, can be stiff and bulky. There is also the problem of leaving certain parts of the body relatively unprotected for the sake of mobility. Soaking Kevlar with STF allows for increased flexibility and reduces the need for quite so many cumbersome layers. Tests indicate that four layers permeated with STF provide more protection than ten layers of untreated Kevlar. The only drawback is that the saturated Kevlar tends to be heavier, making weight an issue.

Liquid armor has been under development at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland for several years now. It is unclear when the technology will be made available to the average soldier, but, as ever, Sigma Force is ahead of the game.

Unfortunately, so is the Guild.

Σ

Stranger than Fiction.

Research conducted by Sigma, with the invaluable assistance of Monsignor Verona, suggests that the mysterious m-state amalgam has appeared throughout myth and history under a variety of guises. The superconductive substance, with its almost miraculous properties, may in fact be a magical white powder mentioned in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the “manna” of Moses and the ancient Israelites, the holy stone given by Christ to the Magi, the Philosopher’s Stone sought by medieval alchemists, and the lost treasure of the Knights Templar.

Although Sigma identified the amalgam as a mixture of monatomic gold and [REDACTED], the precise formula for creating it remains lost to modern science.

Mission Designation: Black Order

Duration: May 16-May 22. Roughly a year after MOB.

Key Locations: Poland, Nepal, Denmark, Germany.

Ghostly lights in the sky, and a mysterious outbreak of illnesses, bring Painter Crowe to a remote Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas, where the crazed monks descend into madness and savagery. Also caught up in the crisis is Dr. Lisa Cummings, an unsuspecting American doctor. When a seemingly superhuman assassin attempts to eradicate all evidence of the outbreak, Painter and Lisa are thrown together—and eventually captured and taken to a hidden fortress high in the mountains, where they discover a secret enclave descended from Nazi scientists who went into hiding after World War II. These scientists, who insist that they are no longer Nazis, have been working for generations on a top-secret mechanism known as the Bell (Die Glaube) which can influence the evolution of living organisms. By exposing fetuses to the strange energies of the Bell, the group has created the Knights of the Sun King (Ritter des Sonnekonig), a handful of super-humans with enhanced strength and abilities, but who also suffer from chronic degeneration. Accidental exposure to the same radiation damages Painter on a quantum level, so that he has only three days to live.

Elsewhere, on what first appears to be an unrelated assignment, Gray Pierce visits Copenhagen, where he clashes with a ruthless clique of assassins intent on capturing an antique Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin. Gray eventually joins with Monk Kokkalis and a fifteen-year-old pickpocket named Fiona to track down the secret history of the Darwin Bible, which might contain a coded riddle from a previous owner, Dr. Hugo Hirzsfeld, a dead Jewish scientist with links to the Black Order, an occult society run by Heinrich Himmler, the infamous head of Hitler’s SS. Before his death in 1945, Hirzsfeld may have discovered the secret to controlling quantum evolution: a truth “too beautiful to let die and too monstrous to set free.” Gray and his companions follow the trail to Wewelsberg Castle in Germany, where they are betrayed by [REDACTED].

Escaping the Himalayan fortress after [REDACTED], Painter makes contact with Sigma once more. Comparing notes, the team discovers that the original Bell project split into two separate factions after the War, one in Nepal and one in South Africa, where the Waalenbergs, a famously rich and reclusive family of corrupt aristocrats, has been carrying on the work of the Black Order in order to create a master race of Aryan super-humans. They have also experimented on animals, spawning such monstrous mutations as [REDACTED]. Now they want the code hidden in the Darwin Bible in order to perfect the process.

With Painter deteriorating mentally and physically, and the Waalenbergs plotting a devastating attack on the world’s capitals, Sigma must launch an assault on the enemy’s massively fortified South African estate in order to find a cure for Painter—and stop modern-day Nazis from creating a new generation of unstoppable Sonnekonige.

Assessment:

With Painter missing or ailing for much of this affair, Sigma manages to function without his leadership until he can be restored to good health. Kat Bryant, among others, is instrumental in holding down the fort at Sigma Command during his absence, foreshadowing her future role as his second-in-command. Unfortunately, this crisis also costs the life of [REDACTED]

Painter’s near-terminal illness leaves its mark physically, giving him a streak of white hair over one ear. On the brighter side, the episode also launches his ongoing relationship with Lisa Cummings, which continues to this day. Her accidental involvement also serves to bring Lisa into Sigma’s fold, where her medical expertise will prove valuable on several occasions.

The Guild’s lack of interest in the Darwin Bible remains puzzling.

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Second only to Hitler.

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) was one of Adolf Hitler’s most loyal henchmen and a monster in his own right. As head of the dreaded Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS, he was one of chief architects of the Holocaust and personally oversaw the establishment and operation of its ghastly concentration camps and gas chambers. It has been estimated that he was responsible for the mass murder of at least eleven million people, including Jews, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, and others deemed unworthy to live.

Driven by Nazi theories of racial superiority and eugenics, he also founded the Ahnnerbe (the SS Ancestral Heritage Society), which, among things, sponsored a 1938-1939 expedition to Tibet. Painter Crowe and Lisa Cummings would later discover the full extent of Himmler’s interest in the region.

In 1934, Himmler acquired Wewelsburg Castle in Germany. Originally intended as an “SS Leadership School,” Wewelsburg was ultimately meant to become the physical and symbolic center of the SS. Top SS leaders held meetings and ceremonies at the castle, which was the subject of ambitious renovations and expansion plans. Slave laborers from nearby concentration camps were pressed into service, although Himmler’s ultimate plans to turn Wewelsburg into “the center of the world” were doomed when the war turned against the Nazis. In 1945, the castle was torched, looted, and partially destroyed before it could fall into the hands to Allies. Later restored, it is now a museum and youth hostel—as Sigma Force discovered when they arrived searching for clues hidden in the castle’s infamous past. A “Black Sun” symbol can still be seen on the marble floor of the SS Generals Hall at Wewelsburg.

Himmler did not long survive the destruction of his dark Camelot. After a failed attempt to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies, he was denounced by Hitler and later captured by the Allies while attempting to flee Germany in disguise. Rather than face trial as a war criminal, he committed suicide via cyanide capsule and was buried in an unmarked grave. Although he died over sixty years ago, Sigma later discovers that Himmler’s evil legacy lived on in the form of [REDACTED].

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Give DARPA a hand.

Monk’s prosthetic hand, which got its first real workout on this operation, may be state-of-the-art (and then some), but DARPA is continuing its Revolutionary Prosthetics program, a $100 million, multi-pronged initiative that has already spawned impressive results.

Now awaiting FDA approval is “Gen 3,” a third-generation bionic limb that boasts a remarkable range of motion and dexterity. Operated by foot controls, the motorized arm is also guided by computerized algorithms that control the force applied by the mechanical fingers—so that test subjects can even use chopsticks with ease!

Meanwhile, human trials have already begun at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on a Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) developed by scientists at John Hopkins University. The MPL, which weighs only nine pounds (about the weight of a normal flesh-and-blood arm) has nearly as much dexterity as a natural limb and is controlled by surface electrodes which pick up electric signals from any remaining muscles and transmit them to the robotic prosthetic. Researchers hope to someday link the electrical sensors directly to an amputee’s nerves. They also aspire to apply this technology to prosthetic legs as well as hands and arms, enabling amputees to walk on working robotic limbs.

DARPA is also funding research into Reliable Central Interfaces (RCI), which involves controlling prosthetic limbs via microchips implanted directly in the brain, allowing amputees to operate their new limbs by thought alone. Although amazing advances have already been made along these lines, DARPA is now intent on increasing the reliability of the technology and eliminating any stubborn technical glitches. The RCI project, which is now underway, is meant to move mind-controlled prosthetic limbs from the laboratory to practical application in the real world—only a few years behind Sigma Force.

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Stranger than fiction.

When a mysterious predator stalks a game preserve in South Africa (not far from the Waalenbergs’ private preserve), game warden Khamisi Taylor first thinks of the ukufa, a terrifying monster of Zulu legend. Said to be as large as a gorilla, the ukufa is feared for its swiftness, cunning, and ferocity. Also known as the dubu, the lumbwa, the kerit, or the getet, the creature is supposed to be just a myth, but certain bloody carcasses suggest otherwise. Gray Pierce and his Sigma colleagues almost join those carcasses when they discover that these particular ukufa are actually [REDACTED].

Outside of Africa, the term ukufa is largely unknown, but the same mythical monster is perhaps better known to westerners as “the Nandi Bear.” Named after a tribe in Kenyan, the Nandi Bear is described as a large, fast-moving predator that seems half-bear, half-hyena, and maybe even part baboon. Reports and sightings of the monster date back to at least the early 1900s. It has sometimes been called “the Abominable Snowman of Africa.”

For more information on the myths and theories regarding this legendary beast, Google “Nandi Bear.” Warning: these “bears” are not of the cuddly variety.

Mission Designation: “Kowalski’s in Love”

Duration: Dates unknown. Sometime before TJS.

Location: Off the coast of Brazil.

A boating accident strands vacationing seaman Joe Kowalski on a remote jungle island, where he encounters Sigma agent Shay Rosauro—and a pack of rabid, man-eating baboons. Seems all the vegetation on the island has been aerial sprayed with a transgenic rhabdovirus that, once ingested, heightens a subject’s senses, but also triggers manic rages. The virus is the work of a certain Dr. Salazar, funded by a shadowy organization of terrorist cells. Sigma has apprehended Salazar, but not before he infected an entire Indian village outside of Manaus, Brazil, including an international children’s relief hospital. Now Shay (and Kowalski) have only twenty-seven minutes to recover the antidote from Salazar’s secluded laboratory—before the Brazilian Navy firebombs the island down to its bedrock in order to eradicate all trace of the virus.

Assessment:

Kowalski had never heard of Sigma Force before this incident, but he is taken on as muscle afterwards. This grisly adventure leaves him with a lasting dislike of apes, monkeys, and simians in general. Shay Rosauro would find herself working with Kowalski again on a later Sigma operation [TLO].

The shadowy organization funding Salazar’s work is presumed to be the Guild.

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A Boy and his Gun.

Shay provides Kowalski with a Variable Kinetic (VK) rifle capable of firing one-inch razor-disks. The high-tech weapon can be set for single shot or automatic strafe and carries two hundred shots per magazine.

Needless to say, it’s love at first sight.

Mission Designation: The Judas Strain

Duration: July 1-August 11. A year after B0.

Key Locations: Indian Ocean, Italy, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Cambodia.

A cloud of toxic bacteria rising from the Indian Ocean leads to an outbreak of death and disease in the vicinity of Christmas Island. Monk Kokkalis and Lisa Cummings join a team of scientists and physicians from the World Health Organization to investigate and assist in the medical crisis, using a commandeered cruise ship, the Mistress of the Seas, as a base of operations. But their mission of mercy takes a dangerous turn when the Guild, assisted by a band of bloodthirsty Indonesian pirates, hijack the vessel and force Lisa and the other doctors to aid them in finding a cure to the root of the outbreak: an ancient virus, dubbed “The Judas Strain,” which can turn benign, everyday bacteria into a variety of lethal plagues. Unleashed into the world, the virus could be a biological disaster of extinction-level proportions.

Back in America, a second front is opened when Seichan turns up at Gray Pierce’s doorstop, fleeing her former employers, the Guild. She is in possession of a stolen Egyptian obelisk inscribed with a cryptic script believed by some to be the primordial language of the angels themselves. Pursued by the Guild, who are determined to reclaim the obelisk and its secrets, Gray and Seichan go on the run, dragging along bodyguard Joe Kowalski and Gray’s aging parents, Jack and Harriet Pierce, who are now in danger as well. Despite Gray’s best efforts to protect his mom and dad, they are soon captured and held hostage by the Guild, forcing Gray to bargain for their safety with Amen Nasser, a vicious Guild assassin known as “The Butcher of Calcutta.” Amen is also a rival (and former lover) of Seichan.

In Indonesia, the Mistress of the Seas is diverted to the Isle of Pusat, a pirate hideaway that is also home to cannibals and a secluded lagoon full of predatory [REDACTED]. Lisa’s studies zero in on Susan Tunis, an infected marine biologist whom is being uniquely transformed by a variant form of the Judas Strain. Although the virus, and the killer bacteria it engenders, usually lead to death, cannibalism, and madness, Susan begins to change [REDACTED] instead, making it vital that Lisa and Monk get her out of the hands of the Guild.

Gray, Seichan, and Kowalski rendezvous with Monsignor Vigor Verona in Istanbul, where they deduce that Marco Polo may have discovered a cure for the Judas Strain during an untold chapter of his famous travels—and that the secret might be found by following a series of historical clues left behind centuries later. The clues are inscribed in angelic script on three golden passports (paitzus) given to Polo, his father, and his uncle by the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan for the Polos’ return voyage back to Europe around 1293 A.D. The hidden passports are accompanied by silken scrolls holding fragments of Polo’s own first-person account of his harrowing discovery of a lost “City of the Dead” ravaged by a plague that bears an ominous resemblance to the Judas Strain.

Seichan reveals that the Guild has two separate teams in play: one investigating the present-day outbreak, which may have been ignited by the recovery of infected timbers from a sunken shipwreck, and another searching for the historical roots of the virus. The Guild’s ultimate goal: to harness the Judas Strain to create an inexhaustible supply of horrific bio-weapons—for which only they possess the cure.

While Monk and Lisa struggle to survive in Indonesia, and Painter Crowe races to rescue Jack and Harriet Pierce from their captors, Gray and his team retrace Marco Polo’s steps from Istanbul to the Island of Hormuz to the abandoned Cambodian ruins of Angkor Wat, where a long-buried [REDACTED] holds the origins of the Judas Strain, even as a legion of pestilences begins to spread across the globe . . . and Sigma Force suffers a tragic loss.

Assessment:

After merely crossing paths with Sigma during the case of the Magi’s bones [MOB], and sitting out a subsequent opportunity entirely [BO], the Guild escalates matters this time around, pulling out all the stops to battle Sigma on multiple fronts around the globe—and threatening the entire ecosystem in their ruthless pursuit of a way to control the Judas Strain. The conflict between Sigma and the Guild gets personal, too, as sadistic Guild assassins threaten Gray’s parents with death and torture. The crisis in Indonesia also leads to the apparent death of Monk, although no body is recovered at the time.

Looking backwards, Gray discovers to his chagrin that the Guild’s pursuit of Marco Polo’s secrets began with a mistake he made two years previously while teaming with Seichan against the Dragon Court [MOB]. It seems that while Sigma was wrapping up the loose ends of that affair, the Guild (and Seichan) swooped in to raid the Dragon Court’s extensive library of ancient historical documents, which had included a one-of-a-kind edition of Marco Polo’s book (stolen from the Vatican’s Secret Archives) that contained a partial account of his forgotten encounter with the Judas Strain. Oops.

New recruits prove their value during this operation. Although not officially a member of Sigma at this time, Lisa Cummings jumps at the chance to put her medical expertise to work in the field. Her experiences in Indonesia also reaffirm her commitment to her relationship with Painter. Joe Kowalski also endures a baptism of fire on this case, surviving his first major mission as a member of Sigma Force.

As for Seichan . . . well, she claims the Guild’s plans for the Judas Strain were too horrific even for her, hence her defection from their ranks, but, as ever, her true motives are a mystery even to Gray.

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Marco Polo, Marco Polo . . . .

Marco Polo (1254-1324) was only seventeen years old when he left Venice with his father Niccolo and uncle Maffeo on an epic journey to the east. Their travels along the fabled Silk Road brought them to Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and eventually the court of the Emperor Kublai Khan in distant “Cathay,” better known to us today as China. The Polos spent seventeen years in China, exploring the country in the service of the emperor, before the Khan permitted them to escort a teenage Mongol princess to Persia for an arranged marriage. The Polos then traveled home to Venice by way of Sumatra, Sri Lanka, India, and Constantinople.

That final journey was a harrowing one. Out of some six hundred souls traveling with the fleet, only a handful (including the Polos) survived the two-year-long voyage. Marco was approximately forty-one years old when he finally returned to Venice, nearly a quarter-century after he left the city as a teenager. He never visited China again.

Caught up in a war between Venice and Genoa, Marco spent a year in prison where he met a fellow prisoner, Rustichello de Pisa, who helped him set down the story of his travels in a book, variously known as Il Millione (“The Million”), Le divasment dou monde (“The Description of the World”) and, in English, The Travels of Marco Polo. Tremendously popular, the book was widely circulated, translated, copied, and recopied by hand, so that a number of variant editions now exist. (Only the copy in the Vatican’s Secret Archives, however, contained the full story of Marco’s horrifying journey home.)

Polo died in 1324, a wealthy man. On his deathbed, he famously declared “I have only told the half of what I saw!”

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The language of the Angels?

The “angelic script” found on both the Egyptian obelisk and inscribed on the floor of the Vatican archives was originally developed by Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), a German abbot and scholar who claimed that the language, which is derived from ancient Hebrew, could be used to communicate with angels. Trithemius, who lived over a century after Marco Polo, is also known for his skill with codes, ciphers, and secret messages. His Stenganographia (roughly, “hidden writing”) was composed near the end of the 15th century and) was long believed to be a book of magic and occultism, but it’s actually, to quote Vigor Verona, “a complex mix of angelology and code breaking.” Small wonder that unknown parties in the Vatican used this “Celestial Alphabet” to hide the hellish secret of the Judas Strain sometime in the early 1600’s.

Note: Trimethius’s angelic script is not to be confused with the Theban alphabet (sometimes called “the Witches’ Alphabet”) which can be also be found in Trimethius’s writings and which is still employed by modern-day Wiccans and occultists.

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You’ve been slimed.

The toxic bacteria and slime that arise from the sea to devastate Christmas Island are hardly unique, and such incidents are becoming less so every day. Pollution, deforestation, overfishing, and climate change are all spurring the growth and resurgence of primitive organisms such as bacteria, algae, and jellyfish—with harmful effects on fish, coral, marine mammals, birds, and even human beings. The oceans are going back to way they were a half-billion years ago, when only slimes ruled the seas. Worse yet, many of these organisms are highly toxic. As recently as April 2011, algal blooms off the coast of Santa Monica caused several sea lions to wash up on the shore, experiencing seizures, paralysis, and foaming at the mouth. Dolphins and pelicans were similarly affected. The culprit: a neurotoxin produced by the algae, which is then consumed by small fish and shellfish before moving up the food chain to birds and mammals. In humans, the toxin attacks the brain, causing disorientation, loss of memory, and even hallucinations.

Nor is the danger confined to the sea. Only a few months later, in July of 2011, toxic algae were blamed for the deaths of several wild boars along the coast of Brittany, forcing beach closures at the height of the tourist season.

Thankfully, such outbreaks have yet to spawn anything as lethal as the Judas Strain, but, with global warming expected make both the sea and fresh water more susceptible to toxic algae and bacteria, the rise of the slime may have only just begun.

Mission Designation: The Last Oracle

Duration: September 5-September 22. Two months after TJS.

Key Locations: Ukraine, Russia, India.

An assassination on the National Mall in Washington D.C., practically at Sigma Command’s front door, puts the team on high alert, especially when the murdered man turns out to be Dr. Archibald Polk, a distinguished neurologist who played a key role in Sigma’s formation--and whose body is found to be highly radioactive. A radiation trail leads to the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and Polk’s estranged daughter, Elizabeth, who has been engaged in studying the fabled Oracle of Delphi of ancient Greece. A child-sized skull containing a cybernetic implant is found hidden inside an artifact at the museum—and attracts a raid by armed gunmen working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a rival intelligence organization led by John Mapplethorpe, a ruthless super-patriot with ghastly secrets to hide.

After escaping the mercenaries with Gray Pierce and Joe Kowalski, Liz Polk reveals that her father, who was obsessed with understanding human intuition and extrasensory perceptions, had spent the last several years in India, studying mystics and yogis. Shortly thereafter a group of Gypsies (Romani) deliver a very special child to Sigma. Sasha is an autistic savant whose clairvoyant abilities have been enhanced by an implant that has been surgically linked to her brain. It is revealed that Sasha is just one of several gifted children who have been created by a now-rogue Russian scientific operation that stole some precious Romani children back in 1959. The Gypsies have liberated Sasha, who is now being sought out by both the DIA and her original Russian caretaker, Major Yuri Raev, even as medical complications caused by her implant bring Sasha close to death. Dr. Lisa Cummings and Kat Bryant both fight to save the girl, whose cryptic drawings hint that Monk Kokkalis might still be alive.

Retracing Archibald Polk’s steps, Painter Crowe dispatches a team including Gray, Kowalski, and Liz to India to find out what Polk learned that so many people are willing kill for. Their investigation leads them on a bloody chase from the Taj Mahal to the teeming streets of New Delhi to a remote village of “untouchables” in the Punjab to a hidden temple where an ancient bloodline of psychics and oracles is traced back to [REDACTED].

But as Gray and his team delve back into the prophetic mists of history, Sigma’s headquarters comes under attack by the Mapplethorpe and his allies, and Painter Crowe must go to desperate lengths to protect both Sasha and Sigma itself, even as the covert invasion costs the life of Painter’s boss and mentor, Sean McKnight.

The crisis escalates as world leaders (including the President of the United States) gather in Ukraine to watch the nuclear ruins at Chernobyl be sealed beneath a massive steel hanger. On hand is Nicholas Solokov, an ambitious Russian politician who plots to [REDACTED] so that he can create a new Russian Empire with himself as its leader, guided by his own private circle of oracles. Nicholas himself is the product of a decades-long breeding program carried out in secret in Chelyabinsk 88, an underground mining complex in Russia’s Southern Ural Mountains, where his allies plan to change the world by unleashing [REDACTED] upon the environment.

But their apocalyptic plans are complicated by Monk, who wakes with amnesia in the subterranean Warren, not knowing who he is or how he got there. Escaping the complex with three gifted children and an elderly chimpanzee named Marta, Monk finds himself hunted by Russian soldiers, wolves, and fierce Siberian tigers through a hostile, radioactive wilderness.

All roads converge on Chernobyl as an ancient Delphic prophecy unfolds . . .

Assessment:

Internecine quarrels and turf wars with other government agencies are nothing new to Painter Crowe; there’s reason he goes through all those antacids. But never before has Sigma headquarters endured an armed attack by a rival agency, let alone one ostensibly on the same side. Sigma’s headquarters is damaged during the assault, requiring future repairs and renovations [TDK]. Meanwhile, the tragic death of Sean McKnight results in a major change of leadership at DARPA as Painter loses both his friend and his immediate superior.

Balancing things out, Monk turns out to have survived his apparent death in Indonesia [TJS], albeit hardly unscathed. Having earlier lost his hand [MOB], he has now lost a portion of his brain and memory as well. Still, Sigma and Kat are happy to have him back, no matter how long and hard his recovery might be.

Improbably, romance blossoms between Kowalski and Liz Polk. The hulking jarhead and the petite anthropologist make an unlikely couple, but are still dating at present.

The Guild plays no part in this operation, but they are hardly forgotten. Little Sasha delivers an ominous prophecy to Gray. “You’re going to die,” she warns him—after handing him a drawing of Seichan’s trademark dragon pendant. “You have to be careful of that! That’s why I drew it!”

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America’s brain trust.

JASON, of which the late Archibald Polk was a member, was founded in 1960 to advise the U.S. Military on matters scientific and technological. Composed of an elite group of civilian scientists, it meets for six weeks every summer to brainstorm ideas and prepare reports on everything from cyber-security to global warming. It also reviews and assesses various Defense Department plans and initiatives. The name of the group was inspired by Jason, the legendary Greek hero who sought the Golden Fleece, although an old joke states that it actually stands for “July August September October November,” which can be how long it takes to get all the reports done.

For most of its existence, JASON was sponsored by DARPA, but DARPA withdrew its support in 2002 after a dispute over the selection process for new members. JASON is now funded by the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research and Engineering), formerly known as the Director, Defense Research & Engineering.

Much of JASON’S work is classified, but recent research topics have included the impact of severe space weather on the nation’s electrical grid, the national security implications of high-frequency gravitational waves (none to speak of, apparently), and the effects on society of widespread DNA sequencing. JASON has also advised President Obama on how to extend the lives of America’s aging nuclear warheads.

JASON’S role in the creation of Sigma Force remains a closely-guarded secret.

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The Chernobyl Syndrome.

The 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine remains the worst nuclear plant accident in history, even compared to the recent catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. An explosion and fire at the No. 4 reactor released unprecedented amounts of radioactive material into the air. The contamination spread over much of the USSR and Europe, with Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia getting the worst of it. Over three hundred thousand people eventually had to be relocated, many of whom were never able to return to their homes. The nearby community of Pripyat, which had once boasted a population of 49,000, became a ghost town practically overnight. Today, a thirty-kilometer “Exclusion Zone” surrounds the abandoned town and plant. Believe it or not, the Zone is now open to tourism.

Radiation from the disaster has been tied to cancer rates and birth defects, but the long-term death toll is difficult to predict—and the subject of considerable debate. The effort to control and contain the disaster, and deal with its devastating aftermath, was ruinously expensive and is believed to have contributed to the eventual fall of the Soviet empire.

A massive concrete sarcophagus was hastily erected to enclose the reactor, but that is now over twenty-five years old—and was only built to last twenty to thirty years. Plans are afoot to build a new shelter, known as the “New Safe Confinement,” over the aging sarcophagus and reactor, but this has been a slow process, plagued by unexpected delays. Originally scheduled for 2005, it is now supposed to be finished by summer 2015.

In theory.

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A prophetic tradition.

For over a thousand years, from roughly 800 BC to 400 AD, the Oracle of Delphi, also known as the Pythia, offered sometimes cryptic prophecies to kings and commoners alike. Supplicants came to the Temple of Apollo, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece, to ask questions of the Oracle, a role which was occupied by a succession of priestesses from all walks of life. The Pythia was said to have received her wisdom by inhaling vapors (pneuma) which rose up from a chasm in the floor of the oracle’s chamber, known as the adyton. Over the centuries, such notables as Hadrian and Croesus consulted the Oracle, until the Christian emperor Theodosius I had the pagan temple shut down in 393 AD.

Modern historians once dismissed the ancient accounts of the sacred vapors as a myth, but more recent studies have shown that Delphi sits atop two intersecting fault lines. It is has been theorized that these faults could have produced a gas, possibly ethylene, that induced a trance-like in the Oracle. This theory has yet to be proven, however, and Sigma’s own investigation suggests that the Pythia’s oracular abilities came from [REDACTED].

It’s perhaps worth noting that Alexander the Great is said to have consulted the Pythia, although he was unhappy with her answers and literally dragged her out of her temple by her hair. Sigma previously crossed paths with Alexander during their hunt for the secrets of the Magi [MOB].

Today, all that remains of the Temple of Apollo is ruins.

Mission Designation: The Doomsday Key

Duration: October 9-October 23. One year after TLO.

Key Locations: United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, France.

A brutal attack on an experimental farm in West Africa, a fatal explosion at the Vatican, and the mysterious assassination of a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey are all linked by one puzzling commonality: an ancient Celtic symbol branded into the heads of three murder victims. Sigma is soon brought into the investigation via two avenues.

In Rome, Lieutenant Rachel Verona contacts Sigma when her uncle, Monsignor Vigor Verona, is seriously injured in an explosion at Saint Peter’s Basilica. That same explosion kills Father Marco Giovanni, an archaeologist who had been desperately attempting to contact Vigor for unknown reasons. Investigating the explosion, Rachel locates a mysterious artifact hidden by Giovanni: a mummified finger.

Gray Pierce and Joe Kowalski jet off to Italy to assist Rachel, only to find Seichan waiting for them as well. Still running from both the Guild and the authorities, she reveals that the Guild is taking a keen interest in this affair. She crashes Gray’s quest to find out why Father Giovanni was killed, although her motives remain suspect.

The unlikely quartet is hunted by Guild assassins intent on securing the artifact. After a furious chase through the Roman Coliseum, the team retraces the steps of Father Giovanni, who had been studying the myth and history of the “Black Madonna,” particularly as it relates to the intersection of paganism and early Christianity. His investigations also touched on a mysterious plague hinted at in the Domesday Book (a comprehensive 11th Century survey of England), as well as scattered legends of curses and healing potions linked to the Black Madonna. Giovanni’s trail leads them from Neolithic ruins in the Lake District of England, where smoldering peat bogs preserve centuries-old mummies infested with a killer fungus, to Wales’s Bardsey Island, said to be the final resting-place of Merlin the Magician. There a hidden crypt points them toward the “key” to curing a long-forgotten biological weapon once employed by the ancient Druids—and those who came before them.

Meanwhile, among the victims in Mali was biologist Jason Gorman, the son of a powerful United States Senator. General Gregory Metcalf tasks Painter Crowe to look into the murder because Jason and his colleagues in Africa had been developing a new variety of genetically-modified (GM) corn when they were attacked. Before dying, Jason had emailed confidential research data to Dr. Henry Malloy, his old professor at Princeton, who is brutally assassinated before Monk Kokkalis and rookie agent John Creed can interview him.

Sigma’s attention soon turns to Viatus International, a huge biotech corporation run by Ivar Karlsen, a visionary Norwegian businessman. As Karlsen is hosting an upcoming conference on overpopulation, Painter and Monk and Creed travel to Akershus Fortress in Norway to interview Karlsen, only to run afoul of Guild assassins led by Krista Magnusson, a seductive geneticist who has infiltrated Viatus on the Guild’s behalf. Krista is in contact with the Guild’s shadowy upper Echelon—and Seichan as well.

As Karlsen relocates to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Painter discovers that Karlsen was behind an ambitious , multipronged scheme to reduce the world’s population by [REDACTED], only to have his own plans coopted and subverted by the Guild. Judged expendable by Echelon, Karlsen and the Vault come under attack by Krista and her mercenaries, even as she plots to claim the “Doomsday Key” sought by Gray and his team.

The battle for possession of the key—actually a cure to [REDACTED]--converges in Clairvaux, France at a maximum-security prison that was once a medieval abbey. All hell breaks loose as the hidden tomb of [REDACTED] is found to hold a secret that pits Sigma and the Guild against each other once more.

Assessment:

With General Metcalf now in command of DARPA, Painter finds Sigma on a much shorter leash than it was under Sean McKnight. Still, Painter manages to work with his new boss to resolve this new crisis, even persuading Metcalf to let Painter to go into the field—and leave Kat Bryant in charge of Sigma Command during his absence.

Meanwhile, Monk is back in action after being on disability and desk duty for a year. In truth, neither Painter nor Kat are convinced that Monk is ready go back into the field after his harrowing ordeal in Russia (TLO), but Monk comes through in the end—even if there are still a few holes in his memory. Elsewhere, Gray finds himself in the tense, unenviable position of having to work beside both of the women in his life, Rachel and Seichan, with nearly fatal results for one of them.

For the second time in three years, the Guild mobilizes in pursuit of a deadly bioweapon with ancient historical roots [TJS, TDK]. Ultimately, a member of the upper Echelon is exposed, as well as a telltale tattoo worn by the Guild’s enigmatic leaders. The full significance of the [REDACTED] symbol remains obscure, along with the Guild’s ultimate goals and origins. Only [REDACTED] is revealed as Echelon, but Sigma’s next encounter with the Guild would prove even more revealing [TDC].

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When in Rome . . . or Switzerland.

Ivar Karlsen belongs to the Club of Rome, an international network of scientists, economists, business leaders, high-ranking civil servants, and past and present heads of state. Notable members include Mikhail Gorbachev and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The group was founded in 1968 at a villa in Rome, which is where its name comes from. It is currently headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland.

The Club of Rome is perhaps best known for The Limits to Growth, an influential (and controversial) 1972 report that examined the conflict between uncontrolled population growth and finite resources. Recent studies have largely supported the original report’s conclusions and predictions.

The Club’s most recent report, 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years, warns that humanity may not survive unless it finds ways to both reduce its consumption and develop more long-range approaches to problem-solving, as opposed to concentrating on short-term gains. It encourages the world to strive toward a more sustainable future. More information at be found at the Club’s official website: www.clubofrome.org.

Unlike Karlsen, the Club of Rome is not allied with the Guild.

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Death and Taxes.

The Domesday Book, which guided the unfortunate Father Giovanni to his own doom, was a comprehensive survey of England and Wales conducted in the 11th century by order of William the Conqueror, in order to assess the wealth (lands, livestock, and so on) of the kingdom for tax purposes. It eventually became known as the “Domesday Book” because it was as all-encompassing and irrevocable as the Last Judgment. It now resides in The National Archives in London and is regarded as an invaluable historical resource, providing an incredibly detailed look at life in 11th Century England. On-line copies of the book, which was originally written on sheep-skin parchment, can be found readily.

As noted by Father Giovanni, certain regions are listed in the book as “wasted.” It is generally assumed that most of these areas had simply been laid waste by William’s wars of conquest, but Sigma discovered that a few such regions had actually fallen victim to [REDACTED].

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The future on ice.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, where the Guild attempted to cover its tracks via [REDACTED], is buried deep in an underground cavern on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, less than seven hundred miles from the North Pole. Blasted out of the permafrost, it has been described as the ultimate safety net for the planet’s biological diversity, storing samples of seeds from all over the world. It has been designed to preserve and protect the seeds no matter what happens elsewhere in the world: wars, unrest, natural disasters, etcetera. The vault consists of three underground chambers, kept at -18 C (0 F), with a maximum capacity of 4.5 million seeds. The remote site is tectonically stable, permanently on ice, and high enough above sea level that global warming and flooding should not be an issue. At present, the vault holds over half a million seed samples, with each bagged sample containing an average of five hundred seeds. Seeds for food crops take priority.

The Vault began operation in 2008. New seeds continue to arrive at the vault, including recent samples from Portugal, Costa Rica, Peru, Zambia, Azerbaijan, and Columbia. In 2010, a delegation of seven US senators delivered seeds for various spicy Native American chillies. Thankfully, they were not hot enough to melt the ice.

Despite the best efforts of the Guild, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault continues to hold its precious samples in safekeeping—just in case they are ever needed to feed a hungry world.

Mission Designation: “The Skeleton Key”

Duration: Unknown. Shortly before TDC.

Key Location: France.

On her own in Paris, Seichan continues her search for the elusive puppet masters behind the Guild, but when she contacts Dr. Claude Beaupre, a noted historian with links to the Guild, he coerces her into rescuing his son Gabriel from The Order of the Solar Temple (l’Ordre du Temple Solaire), a doomsday cult led by Luc Vennard, a Guild operative with his own ambitious agenda. Also drafted into this assignment is Remy McCleod, a Scottish teenager whose tattoo-artist girlfriend Jolien was recently abducted by the OTS—and may end up a human sacrifice.

Remy is a cataphile, an amateur explorer of Paris’s vast subterranean catacombs, whose knowledge of the underground necropolis is literally tattooed on his flesh. Spurred on by electrocution collars locked around their necks, Seichan and Remy must find and penetrate the hidden lair of the OTS—before the cult can trigger a catastrophe that will plunge half of Paris into a sprawling City of the Dead . . . .

Assessment:

Although not technically a Sigma operation, Seichan’s solo adventure in Paris yields vital intel on the Guild for both her and Sigma Force. In exchange for her efforts to liberate his son, Beaupre provides Seichan with various files, notes, and historical documents relating to the Guild’s roots in American history. These folders, which bear the seal of [REDACTED] and include a handwritten letter from [REDACTED], are later passed on to Gray Pierce and Sigma [TDC].

Seichan is aware that the Guild often suborns violent cults such as the OTS for its own purposes. She also observes that Guild is stirred up, indicating that something major is afoot within the organization. It is at such times of upheaval, when contacts and assets are in motion, that locked doors swing open for a moment—and a daring operative can sometimes catch a glimpse of secrets usually kept under wraps.

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A real-life cult of death and destruction.

Much of the gruesome history of the Order of the Solar Temple is a matter of public record. Founded in 1984, the cult was responsible for a string of mass murder-suicides in the mid-nineties, including the brutal killing of a baby who was stabbed to death with a wooden stake. In total, 74 people were killed or committed suicide in Canada, France, and Switzerland. Believers, many of whom were wealthy and successful, were taught that the end of the world was imminent and that death was just a passage to a new life on another planet. At its height, the cult boasted somewhere between four and six hundred members, although its membership had begun to decline at the time of the murders and mass suicides. The founders of the cult, Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro, died with their followers.

The OTS claimed descent from the Knights Templar, with Jouret even identifying himself as the reincarnation of the one of the original Templars, but there is no reason to believe that this was anything but an audacious fabrication, intended to sway the gullible. The OTS is said to have disbanded, but Seichan discovered for herself that the cult was not quite defunct.

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Beneath the City of Light.

By 1786, the cemeteries of Paris had become hopefully overcrowded, posing a threat to health and sanitation. A new place to store the accumulated dead of Paris needed to be found. Fortunately, hundreds of miles of old limestone quarries, some dating back to the days of the Roman Empire, stretched beneath the outskirts of the city. King Louis XVI ordered the bones relocated to the mines, a process which took about two years. In the end, the remains of approximately six million people ended up in what became known as the catacombs, where they remain to this day.

A portion of the catacombs is open to tourists, but much of the sprawling underground labyrinth remains officially off-limits. This hasn’t stopped generations of enthusiastic cataphiles (“lovers of catacombs”) from exploring, mapping, and partying in the tunnels since at least the 1970s. Dodging the police who patrol the underground, a thriving subculture has made itself at home in the catacombs—just as the French Resistance did back in World War II. Graffiti from the French Revolution to the present adorns the tunnels, as do walls of human skulls and bones.

The old quarries were originally located outside Paris, but the city eventually spread out over the tunnels, so that the city’s foundations are now riddled with underground passages and chambers. This sometimes has tragic consequences, as tunnel collapses have swallowed up entire houses and neighborhoods. The first such disaster took place in 1774, decades before the old quarries became a city of the dead, but another such collapse claimed twenty-one lives as recently as 1961. The Inspection Generale des Carrieres (IGC) inspects and reinforces the underground as needed, but only Seichan knows how close Paris came to joining the six million dead in the catacombs.

Mission Designation: The Devil Colony

Duration: May 18-June 4. Approximately eight months after TDK.

Key Locations: USA, Japan, Iceland.

Native American legends warn that if a sacred cave in the Rocky Mountains is ever violated, the world will end. This prophecy proves well-founded when an archaeological excavation at the site uncovers a hidden treasure trove of pale-skinned mummies, inscribed gold plates, and other relics, including the gold-plated skull of a saber-toothed tiger. Unfortunately, the dig also triggers a nest of ancient nanoparticles that cause the very earth around the site to dissolve, igniting volcanic eruptions—and restarting a centuries-old war for control of the lost secrets of a mysterious “Devil Colony.”

The discovery also attracts Painter Crowe’s “niece,” Kai Quocheets, a young Indian activist who is soon caught up in the Guild’s ruthless pursuit of the ancient technology, a quest which may have begun hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. Along with Joe Kowalski and Sigma geologist Ronald Chin, Painter rushes to Utah to rescue Kai and deal with the ongoing crisis. His team joins forces with Professor Henry Kanosh, a Native American historian and naturalist, to track down legends of a mysterious tribe of “Pale Indians,” The People of the Morning Star (Tawtsee’unsaw Pootseev), who were believed to have possessed secret, highly dangerous knowledge—and who might also have been the Nephites, one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, whom, according to the Book of Mormon, came to North America around 600 B.C.

Also in pursuit of the forbidden secrets is Rafael Saint Germaine, a French aristocrat and high-ranking Guild operative. Rafe and his mercenaries pursue Painter, Kai, and the others from Utah to Arizona, where long-buried ruins suggest that the Anasazi, a prehistoric Native American culture, may have stolen the secrets of the Tawtsee’unsaw Pootseev —and been destroyed as a result.

Meanwhile, Gray Pierce, Monk Kokkalis and Seichan follow an historical trail blazed by legendary explorer Meriwether Lewis (of “Lewis and Clark” fame) and Archard Fortescue, an eighteenth-century French scientist who secretly joined Lewis on some of his travels. Both men, it appears, were working on behalf of Thomas Jefferson to protect the secrets of the Tawtsee’unsaw Pootseev from an insidious “Enemy”—who might very well have been the Guild. These secrets are linked to Jefferson’s unrealized plans to create a Fourteenth Colony for America’s Indian population, located around the lost city of the Tawtsee’unsaw Pootseev. Gray and his team clash with the Guild as they retrace Fortescue’s travels from a volcanic island off the coast of Iceland, where a cataclysmic [REDACTED] nearly kills them, to the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, where they find a golden map hidden by Jefferson centuries ago. The map points Sigma toward Yellowstone National Park, even as Gray and his team search for more clues by unearthing the grave of Meriwether Lewis—who may have been assassinated by the Guild back as 1809.

To make matters worse, scientists at the Kamioka Observatory in Japan detect a sudden spike in neutrinos emanating from the violated cave in Rockies. The Utah event triggers neutrino bursts at other sites around the world, including Iceland and Yellowstone, setting off a chain reaction that will ultimately cause a [REDACTED] that could wipe out humanity once and for all. With time running out, Sigma Force must join into an uneasy alliance with the Guild to find “the Devil Colony” before the end of the world arrives just as foretold . . . .

Assessment:

Several Sigma agents have a personal stake this time around. Painter forms a connection with his “niece.” Monk and Kat survive to see the birth of their second daughter, Harriet, an event which causes Monk to rethink his future with Sigma Force. Gray suffers a devastating personal loss, which ultimately brings him closer to Seichan . . . at least for the moment.

Turning to the bigger picture, a fuller picture of the Guild continues to emerge. Rafe, who belongs to the upper Echelon, eventually reveals that the shadowy organization is now led by a single ancient family, “the True Bloodline,” stretching back millennia. To stay strong, this ancient clan absorbs younger families of the Echelon, according to a three-tier ranking system. A distinctive tattoo, which hints at connections to both the Freemasons and the Knights Templar, indicates a member’s rank in the Echelon. These powerful clans have also been known as “the star families” (famillles de l’etoile). According to Rafe, the Guild is “the secret within all secret societies.”

And that secret is bound up with the birth of America. Historical evidence unearthed by Gray and Seichan suggest that the True Bloodline flowed through the original thirteen colonies from the beginning, with a certain prominent family so entrenched in the slave trade that any attempt to wrest them out would have ripped the fledgling nation apart. This was the “Enemy” Jefferson fought against centuries ago, and who, Painter deduces, now goes by the name of [REDACTED].

The true origins of Tawtsee’unsaw Pootseev remain murky, but evidence suggests that they were descended from an ancient order of shamans and magi dating back to ancient Egypt, not unlike the lost magi Sigma investigated a few years ago [MOB]. Are these the same magi as before? The evidence, particularly the Egyptian connection, is provocative, but no definite conclusions can be reached at this time.

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The enigmatic death of a great explorer.

Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) helped open up the American West, but died under mysterious circumstances only three years later. In 1803, on behalf of President Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and his fellow Virginian, William Clark, led a historic transcontinental expedition from Illinois to the Pacific coast. The Lewis and Clark Expedition provided a wealth of information on the continent’s flora, fauna, geography, and Native American peoples. The journey, including the return trip, took two years, four months, and ten days.

For his efforts, Lewis was appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory, but his administration was a troubled one, plagued by political rivals and budgetary disputes. In 1809, while en route to Washington D.C., Lewis paused for the night at a Grinder’s Stand, an inn along a rugged pioneer trail in what is now the state of Tennessee. Shots rang out in the night and Lewis was found with gunshot wounds to the head and side. He died atop a bloody buffalo robe at the age of thirty-five. (More than two centuries later, that same buffalo hide would play a key role in Sigma’s search for the Devil Colony.)

Controversy surrounds his death to this day. Jefferson and Clark, along with many historians, believed that a despondent Lewis took his own life, while others, including a doctor who examined the body in 1848, believed that he had been murdered for reasons unknown. Sigma’s own investigation suggests that Lewis may have been killed by an agent of the Guild because [REDACTED].

Lewis is buried beneath a monument in the Natchez Trace Parkway, not far from where he died. Efforts to have the body exhumed in hopes of determining the truth behind his death have been rejected by the National Park Service.

Not that this stopped Gray Pierce.

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Who were the Anasazi—and what became of them?

The prehistoric Native American people we call the Anasazi once inhabited what is now the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. “Anasazi” is a Navajo word which can mean either “Ancient Ones” or “Ancient Enemy.” The name was adopted by modern archaeologists in 1927, but some Pueblo Indians now prefer the terms “Ancient Pueblo People” or “Ancestral Pueblo.” It is unknown what the Anasazi called themselves since even their language or languages have been lost to history.

The Anasazi, who hit their height between 900 and 1300 AD, centuries before Columbus, are best known for their monumental cliff-dwellings—and for the way they abruptly abandoned their settlements, leaving behind imposing ruins at such locations as Chaco Canyon, New Mexico and Mesa Verde, Colorado. They often left behind their possessions as well, including fine pottery and basketry. By the time, the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, the ruins stood empty and the Navajo had inherited the land once occupied by the “Ancient Enemy.”

Why exactly the Anasazi “vanished” remains unclear, although it is theorized that climate change and endless droughts drove the Anasazi to disperse to more hospitable climes. There is also evidence of violence, warfare, religious upheaval, and perhaps even cannibalism. Many modern-day Pueblo Indians, such as the Hopi and the Zuni, list the Anasazi among their ancestors.

But was there another reason the Anasazi fled their homes and lands, never to return? Sigma’s own investigation revealed that the Anasazi brought about their doom by [REDACTED].

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Building from the bottom up.

A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, roughly 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Nanotechnology, loosely speaking, involves engineering and manufacturing on the atomic and molecular level. It is a (supposedly) new technology that holds tremendous promise for the future, as well as potential hazards.

On the positive side, nanotech is opening up new horizons in manufacturing techniques, medicine, information technology, energy production, and other fields. Nanoscale materials, such as carbon nanotubes only one nanometer in diameter, are already employed to make products such as baseball bats and motorcycle helmets stronger, lighter, and more durable. Cheaper and more efficient solar panels, incorporating nanotech, are already in the works. Medical researchers are looking into ways to use nanotech to repair damaged spinal cords. Down the road, home fabricators may allow you to build almost any product in your own home, one molecule at a time.

New and unexpected applications for nanotech are being found all the time. For example, European scientists recently employed nanotech to detect blood cells in a 5,300 year old glacier mummy. These are the oldest traces of human blood to be found anywhere in the world. (Something bound to be of interest to Sigma Force.)

On the other hand, nanotech is not without its dangers. The toxicity of carbon nanotubes and other such materials is already a cause for concern, while, in theory, nanotech could also be employed to creates frightening new weapons and means of surveillance. There is also the potential for environmental disasters. The worst-case scenario: swarms of out-of-control, self-replicating micro-machines dissembling everything they come in contact with, including the planet itself. This is seen as a remote possibility, but not (as Sigma Force discovered) an impossible one.

Nanotechnology is a boom industry. In 2000, the U.S. Government launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to expedite “the discovery, development and deployment of nanoscale science and technology to serve the public good, through a program of coordinated research and development.” DARPA is among the many federal agencies taking part in NNI, which has is slated to receive $1.8 billion in government funding in 2013. Similar initiatives have been launched by nations throughout the world, including Europe and Asia.

For more information, check out: http://nano.gov.

Nanotech is believed to be a modern development, but this may not be entirely the case. Saber blades made of “Damascus steel,” a type of steel employed from the 13th to 18th centuries, have been found to contain carbon nanotubes—which may explain their legendary reputation for strength and sharpness. The exact process by which Damascus steel was forged was lost centuries ago, long before modern nanotech was invented—or perhaps reinvented.

Mission Designation: Bloodline

Duration: June 30-July 12. A month after TDC.

Key Locations: USA, Somalia, Dubai, Zanzibar.

When a pregnant American woman is kidnapped by Somalian pirates, Sigma Force is called into action. A rescue mission does not usually fall under Sigma’s purview, but this abduction is different—because the hostage is the President’s daughter.

[The details of this operation remain classified.]

FACING THE FUTURE

Sigma Force has endured many changes since Painter Crowe was first recruited as an agent. There have been changes in leadership, changes in personnel, and dramatic changes in the lives of the extraordinary men and women who serve in secret to protect America and the world from scientific mysteries and marvels both new and very, very old. Sigma’s political fortunes have risen and fallen, and a relentless enemy has gradually emerged from the shadows in the form of the Guild, but Sigma’s mission remains the same: to get there first—before the bad guys do.