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
THE 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.
“What does such an ancient cult have to do with the situation now?” she asked.
“The Dragon Court is still active today. Its sovereignty is even recognized by the EU, similar to the Knights of Malta, who hold observer status at the United Nations. The shadowy Dragon Court has been linked to the European Council of Princes, the Knights Templar, and the Rosicrucians. The Dragon Court also openly admits to having members within the Catholic Church. Even here in the Vatican.”
“Here?” Rachel could not keep the shock from her voice. She and her uncle had been targeted. By someone inside the Vatican.
“A few years back, there was quite a scandal,” Uncle Vigor continued. “A former Jesuit priest, Father Malachi Martin, wrote of a ‘secret church’ within the Church. He was a scholar who spoke seventeen languages, authored many scholarly texts, and was a close associate of Pope John XXIII. He worked here in the Vatican for twenty years. His last book, written just before he died, spoke of an alchemical cult within the Vatican itself, performing rites in secret.”
Rachel felt a sickening lurch in her stomach that had nothing to do with the helicopter banking in the direction of the international airport in nearby Fiumicino. “A secret church within the Church. This is who may have been involved in the Cologne massacre? Why? What’s their purpose?”
“For stealing the bones of the Magi? I have no clue.”
Rachel allowed this revelation to filter through her mind. To catch a criminal required first knowing them. Ascertaining motive often proved more informative than physical evidence.
“What else do you know about the Court?” she asked.
“Despite their long history, not much. Back in the eighth century, Emperor Charlemagne conquered ancient Europe in the name of the Holy Church, smashing pagan nature-cult religions and replacing their beliefs with Catholicism.”
Rachel nodded, well acquainted with the brutal tactics of Charlemagne.
“But tides turn,” Uncle Vigor continued. “What was once unfashionable becomes fashionable again. By the twelfth century, a resurgence in Gnostic or mystical belief began to arise, taken up in secret by the same emperors who had once beaten it down. A schism slowly formed as the Church moved toward the Catholicism we know today, while the emperors continued their Gnostic practices. The schism came to a head during the end of the fourteenth century. The exiled papacy in France had just returned. To make peace, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg backed the Vatican politically, even outwardly abolishing Gnostic practices among the lower classes.”
“Only the lower classes?”
“The aristocracy was spared. While the emperor beat down mystical beliefs among commoners, he created a secret society among the royal families of Europe, one dedicated to alchemical and mystical pursuits. The Ordinis Draconis. The Imperial Royal Dragon Court. It continues to this day. But there are many sects in different countries; some are benign, merely ceremonial or fraternal, but others have sprouted up that are led by vitriolic leaders. I would wager if the Dragon Court is involved, it is one of these rabid subsects.”
Rachel slipped instinctually into interrogation mode. Know your enemy. “And what’s the goal of these nastier sects?”
“As a cult of aristocracy, these extreme leaders believe they and their members are the rightful and chosen rulers of mankind. That they were born to rule by the purity of their blood.”
“Hitler’s master-race syndrome.”
A nod. “But they seek more. Not just kingship. They seek all forms of ancient knowledge to further their cause of domination and apocalypse.”
“To tread where even Hitler feared to go,” Rachel mumbled.
“Mostly they’ve maintained an austere air of superiority while manipulating politics behind a screen of secrecy and ritual, working with such elite groups as Skull and Bones in America and the Bilderburg think tank in Europe. But now someone is showing their hand, brazenly, bloodily.”
“What does it mean?”
Uncle Vigor shook his head. “I fear this sect has discovered something of major importance, something that draws them out of hiding and into the open.”
“And the deaths?”
“A warning to the Church. Like the attacks upon ourselves. The simultaneous murder attempts today couldn’t be coincidence. They had to have been ordered by the Dragon Court, to slow us, to scare us. It couldn’t be coincidence. This particular Court is flexing its muscles, growling for the Church to back off, shedding the skin it’s worn for centuries.”
“But to what end?”
Uncle Vigor leaned back with a sigh. “To achieve the goal of all madmen.”
Rachel continued to stare at him.
He answered with one word. “Armageddon.”
4:04 P.M.EST
AIRBORNE OVER THE ATLANTIC
GRAY SHOOK his tumbler, clinking the ice.
Kat Bryant glanced from her seat across the plush cabin of the private jet. She didn’t say anything, but her furrowed brow spoke volumes. She had been concentrating on the mission dossier—for the second time. Gray had already read it from cover to cover. He saw no need to peruse it again. Instead, he had been studying the gray-blue slate of the Atlantic Ocean, trying to figure out why he had been pegged as mission leader. At forty-five thousand feet, he still had no answer.
Swiveling his chair, he stood and crossed to the antique mahogany bar at the back of the cabin. He shook his head again at the opulence here: Waterford crystal, burled walnut, leather seatin
g. It looked like an upscale English pub.
But at least he knew the bartender.
“Another Coke?” Monk asked.
Gray placed his glass on the bar. “I think I’ve reached my limit.”
“Lightweight,” his friend mumbled.
Gray turned and faced the cabin. His father had once told him that acting the part was halfway to becoming that part. Of course, he had been referring to Gray’s stint as a rig hand at an oil field, one overseen by his engineer father. He had been only sixteen, spending a summer in the hot sun of East Texas. It had been brutal work, when other of his high school friends had been summering on the beaches of South Padre Island. His father’s admonishment still rang in his head. To be a man, you first have to act like one.
Perhaps the same could be said for being a leader.
“Okay, enough with hitting the books,” he said, drawing Kat’s eyes. He glanced to Monk. “And I think you’ve explored the depth of this flying liquor cabinet long enough.”
Monk shrugged and came around into the main cabin area.
“We have less than four hours of flight time,” Gray said. With their jet, a custom Citation X, traveling just under sonic speeds, they would be landing at two A.M. German time, the dead of night. “I suggest we all try to get some sleep. We’ll be hitting the ground running once we’re there.”
Monk yawned. “You don’t have to tell me twice, Commander.”
“But first let’s compare notes. We’ve had a lot thrown at us.”
Gray pointed to the seats. Monk dropped into one. Gray joined them, facing Kat across a table.
While Gray had known Monk since joining Sigma, Captain Kathryn Bryant remained a relative unknown. She was so steeped in study that few at Sigma knew her well. She was mostly defined by her reputation since being recruited. One operative described her as a walking computer. But her reputation was also clouded by her former role as an intelligence operative. Overseeing black ops, it was rumored. But no one knew for sure. Her past was beyond the classification of even her fellow Sigma members. Such secrecy only isolated her further from men and women who had risen through the ranks in units, teams, and platoons.