Map of Bones (10 page)

Grayson turned back to Painter. “Was any wine passed out during the service?”

“Only to a handful of the parishioners. But they also consumed the Communion bread.” Painter waited, watching the strange gears shift in the man’s head, seeing him come to a conclusion that had taken experts even longer to reach. There was a reason beyond brawn and reflex for why Grayson had caught Painter’s eye.

“The Communion bread
must
have been poisoned,” Grayson said. “There is no other explanation. Something was intrinsically seeded into the victims through the consumption of the hosts. Once contaminated, they were susceptible to whatever force was generated by the device.” Grayson’s eyes met Painter’s again. “Were the host wafers examined for any contamination?”

“There was not enough left in the victims’ stomach contents to analyze properly, but there were wafers left over from the service. They were sent to labs throughout the EU.”

“And?”

By now, the glassy fatigue had vanished from the man’s eyes, replaced by a laser-focused attention. He was plainly still competent for duty. But the test was not over.

“Nothing was found,” Painter continued. “All analyses showed nothing but wheat flour, water, and the usual bakery ingredients for making unleavened bread wafers.”

The crease deepened between Grayson’s brows. “That’s impossible.”

Painter heard the stubborn edge to his voice, almost belligerent. The man remained firmly confident in his assessment.

“There
must
be something,” Grayson pressed.

“Labs at DARPA were also consulted. Their results were the same.”

“They were wrong.”

Monk reached out a restraining arm.

Kat crossed her arms, settled on the matter. “Then there must be another explanation for—”

“Bullshit,” Grayson said, cutting her off. “The labs were all wrong.”

Painter restrained a smile. Here was the
leader
waiting to come out in the man: sharp of mind, doggedly confident, willing to listen but not easily swayed once his mind was set.

“You’re right,” Painter finally said.

While Monk’s and Kat’s eyes widened in surprise, Grayson merely leaned back in his seat.

“Our labs here did find something.”

“What?”

“They carbonized the sample down to its component parts and separated out all the organic components. They then removed each trace element as the mass spectrometer measured it. But after everything was stripped away, they still had a quarter of the dry weight of the host remaining on their scales. A dry whitish powder.”

“I don’t understand,” Monk said.

Grayson explained. “The remaining powder couldn’t be detected by the analyzing equipment.”

“It was sitting on the scales, but the machines were telling the technicians nothing was there.”

“That’s impossible,” Monk said. “We have the best equipment in the world here.”

“But still they couldn’t
detect
it.”

“The powdery substance must be totally inert,” Grayson said.

Painter nodded. “So the lab boys here tested it further. They heated it to its melting point, 1,160 degrees. It melted and formed a clear liquid that, when the temperature dropped, hardened to form a clear amber glass. If you ground the glass in a mortar and pestle, it again formed the white powder. But in every stage it remained inert, undetectable by modern equipment.”

“What can do that?” Kat asked.

“Something we all know, but in a state that was only discovered in the last couple decades.” Painter flicked to the next picture. It showed a carbon electrode in an inert gas chamber. “One of the technicians worked at Cornell University, where this test was developed. They performed a fractional vaporization of the powder coupled with emission spectroscopy. Using an electroplating technique, they were able to get the powder to anneal back to its more common state.”

He tapped up the last picture. It was a close-up of the black electrode, only it was no longer
black
. “They were able to get the converted substance to adhere to the carbon rod.”

The black electrode, plated now, shone under the lamp, brilliant and unmistakable.

Grayson leaned forward in his seat. “Gold.”

6:24
P
.
M
.
ROME, ITALY

T
HE CAR’S
siren wailed in Rachel’s ears. She sat in the passenger seat of the Carabinieri patrol, bruised, aching, head throbbing. But all she could feel was an icy certainty that Uncle Vigor was dead. Fear threatened to strangle her, shortening her breath and narrowing her vision.

Rachel half-heard the patrolman speaking into his radio. His vehicle had been the first on the scene of her ambush on the streets. She had refused medical care and used her authority as a lieutenant to order the man to take her to the Vatican.

The car reached the bridge spanning the Tiber River. Rachel continued to stare toward her destination. Across the channel, the shining dome of St. Peter’s appeared, rising above all else. The setting sun cast it in hues of silver and gold. But what she saw rising behind the basilica lifted her from her seat. Her hands grabbed the edge of the dashboard.

A sooty column of black smoke coiled into the indigo sky.

“Uncle Vigor…”

Rachel heard the sounds of additional sirens echoing up the river. Fire engines and other emergency vehicles.

She grabbed the patrolman’s arm. She itched to shove the man out of the way and drive herself. But she was still shaken up. “Can you go any faster?”

Carabiniere Norre nodded. He was young, new to the force. He wore the black uniform with the red stripe down the legs and silver sash across his chest. He twisted the wheel and rode up onto a sidewalk to clear past a knot of traffic. The closer they got to the Vatican, the worse the congestion became. The convergence of emergency vehicles had snarled all traffic in the area.

“Aim for St. Anne’s Gate,” she ordered.

He wheeled around and managed to cut down an alley to get them within three blocks of Porta Sant’ Anna. Directly ahead, the source of the fire became clear. Beyond the walls of Vatican City, the Tower of the Winds was the second-highest point of all of Vatican City. Its top floors blazed with flames, becoming a stone torch.

Oh no…

The tower housed a part of the Vatican Archives. She knew her uncle had been searching the libraries of the Holy See. After her attack, the fire couldn’t be a mere accident.

The car suddenly braked sharply, throwing Rachel forward in her seat restraints. Her eyes were torn away from the blazing tower.

All traffic forward was blocked.

Rachel could not wait any longer. She yanked on the door handle and began to roll out.

Fingers gripped her shoulder, restraining her. “Tenente Verona,” Carabiniere Norre said. “Here. You may need this.”

Rachel stared down at the black pistol, a Beretta 92, the man’s service weapon. She took it with a nod of thanks. “Alert the station. Let General Rende of the TPC know that I’ve returned to the Vatican. He can reach me through the Secretariat’s Office.”

He nodded. “Be careful, Tenente.”

With sirens wailing from every direction, Rachel set off on foot. She shoved the pistol into the waistband of her belt and tugged her blouse free so it hung over and hid the Beretta. Out of uniform, it would not be good to be seen running toward an emergency situation with an exposed weapon.

Crowds filled the sidewalks. Rachel took to shimmying between the cars stalled in the streets, and even slid across the hood of one to continue forward. Ahead she spotted a red municipal fire engine edging through St. Anne’s Gate. It was a narrow fit. A contingent of Swiss Guards formed a barricade to either side, on high alert. No ceremonial halberds here. Each man had an assault rifle in hand.

Rachel pushed toward the guard line.

“Lieutenant Verona with the Carabinieri Corps!” she yelled, arms up, ID in hand. “I must reach Cardinal Spera!”

Expressions remained hard, unbending. Clearly they had been ordered to block all entrance to the Holy See, closing it off to all but emergency personnel. A Carabinieri lieutenant had no authority over the Swiss Guards.

But from the back of the line, a single guard pushed forward, dressed in midnight blue. Rachel recognized him as the same guard to whom she had spoken earlier. He shoved through the line and met her.

“Lieutenant Verona,” he said. “I’ve been ordered to escort you inside. Come with me.”

He turned on a heel and led her away.

She hurried to keep up as they crossed through the gate. “My uncle…Monsignor Verona…”

“I know nothing except to escort you to the
eliport
.” He directed her to an electric groundskeeper’s cart parked just past the gate. “Orders from Cardinal Spera.”

Rachel climbed inside. The lumbering fire engine rolled ahead of them and entered the wide yard that fronted the Vatican Museums. It joined the other emergency vehicles, including a pair of military vehicles mounted with submachine guns.

With clearance now, the guardsman turned their cart to the right, skirting the emergency traffic jam in front of the museums. Overhead, the tower continued to blaze. From somewhere on the far side, a jet of water exploded upward, trying to reach the fiery top levels. Flames lapped from windows of the top three floors. Clouds of black smoke billowed and churned. The tower was a tinderbox, stoked with masses of books, parchments, and scrolls.

It was a disaster of vast scale. What fire didn’t destroy, water and smoke would ruin. Centuries of archives, mapping Western history, gone.

Still, Rachel found all her fears centered on one concern.

Uncle Vigor.

The cart zipped past the city’s garage and continued down a paved road. It paralleled the Leonine Wall, the stone-and-mortar cliff that enclosed Vatican City. They circled the museum complex and reached the vast gardens covering the back half of the city-state. Fountains danced in the distance. The world was painted in shades of green. It seemed too pastoral for the hellish landscape behind them of smoke, fire, and siren wails.

They continued in silence to the very back of the grounds.

Their destination appeared ahead. Tucked into a walled alcove was the Vatican heliport. Converted from old tennis courts, the airfield was little more than a vast acre of concrete and some outbuildings.

On the tarmac, a single helicopter rested on its skids, isolated from the tumult. Its blades were slowly beginning to spin, gaining speed. The engine whined. Rachel knew the solid white aircraft. It was the pope’s private helicopter, nicknamed the “Holycopter.”

She also recognized the black robe and red sash of Cardinal Spera. He stood at the open door to the passenger compartment, ducked slightly from the spinning blades. One hand held his scarlet skullcap in place.

He turned, drawn by the motion of the cart, and lifted an arm in greeting. The motor cart braked a short distance away. Rachel hardly waited for it to stop and leapt out. She hurried toward the cardinal.

If anyone knew the fate of her uncle, it would be the cardinal.

Or one other…

From the back of the helicopter, a figure stepped out and hurried toward her. She rushed to meet him and hugged him tight under the whirling blades of the helicopter.

“Uncle Vigor…” Tears ran down her face, hot, melting through the ice around her heart.

He pulled back. “You’re late, child.”

“I was distracted,” she answered.

“So I heard. General Rende passed on word of your attack.”

Rachel glanced back to the flaming tower. She smelled the smoke in his hair. His eyebrows were singed. “It seems I wasn’t the only one attacked. Thank God you’re okay.”

Her uncle’s face darkened, his voice tightened. “Unfortunately, not all were so blessed.”

She met his eyes.

“Jacob was killed in the blast. His body shielded mine, saved me.” She heard the anguish in his words, even over the roar of the helicopter. “Come, we must get away.”

He directed her to the helicopter.

Cardinal Spera nodded to her uncle. “They must be stopped,” he said cryptically.

Rachel followed her uncle into the helicopter. They strapped themselves in as the door was shoved closed. The thick insulation muffled a good portion of the engine noise, but Rachel heard the helicopter rev up. It immediately lifted from its skids and rose smoothly into the air.

Uncle Vigor settled against his seatback, head bowed, eyes closed. His lips trembled, speaking a silent prayer. For Jacob…perhaps for themselves.

Rachel waited until he opened his eyes. By then, they were winging away from the Vatican and out over the Tiber. “The attackers,” Rachel began, “…they were driving vehicles with Vatican license plates.”

Her uncle nodded, unsurprised. “It seems that the Vatican not only has spies abroad, but is also spied against within its own midst.”

“Who—?”

With a groan, Uncle Vigor cut her off. He sat straighter, reached into his jacket, and removed a folded slip of paper. He passed it to her. “The survivor of the Cologne massacre described this for a sketch artist. He saw it embroidered on the chest of one of the attackers.”

Rachel unfolded the slip of paper. Drawn in surprising detail was the coiled figure of a red dragon, wings blazed out, tail twisted and serpentine, wrapped around its own neck.

She lowered the drawing and glanced to her uncle.

“An ancient symbol,” her uncle said. “Dating back to the fourteenth century.”

“Symbol of what?”

“The Dragon Court.”

Rachel shook her head, not recognizing the name.

“They are a medieval alchemical cult created by a schism in the early Church, the same schism that saw the rise of popes and antipopes.”

Rachel was familiar with the reign of Vatican antipopes, men who sat as head of the Catholic Church but whose election was later declared uncanonical. They arose for a variety of reasons, the most common being the usurpation and exile of the legitimately elected pope, usually by a militant faction backed by a king or emperor. From the third to fifteenth century, forty antipopes had risen to sit on the papal throne. The most tumultuous era, though, was during the fourteenth century, when the legitimate papacy was driven out of Rome and into France. For seventy years, popes reigned in exile, while Rome was governed by a series of corrupt antipopes.