“Exactly. While you collect your things, I’m going off to the libraries and archives. I already have a team of scholars sifting through all references to the Three Kings. By the time the helicopter lifts off, I’ll have a full dossier on the Magi.” Uncle Vigor reached to her, hugged her tight, and whispered in her ear. “You can still refuse. I would think no less of you.”
Rachel shook her head, pulling back. “As the saying goes, fortes fortuna adiuvat.”
“Fortune does indeed favor the brave.” He kissed her gently on her cheek. “If I had a daughter like you—”
“You’d be excommunicated.” She kissed his other cheek. “Now let’s go.”
Her uncle led her out of the Apostolic Palace, then they parted ways, he toward the Libraries, she toward St. Anne’s Gate.
Before long and with barely any note of the passage of time, Rachel reached her parked car and climbed into the Mini Cooper. She sped out of the underground car park and squealed around a tight corner into traffic. She ticked off all she would need, while trying to keep any speculation to a minimum.
She raced over the Tiber River and headed toward the center of town. With her mind on autopilot, she failed to note when she had regained her tail. Only that it was back there again.
Her heartbeat quickened.
The black BMW kept five car lengths behind her, matching her every move around slower cars and even-slower pedestrians. She made a couple of fast turns, not enough to alert her tail that he had been spotted, just her usual controlled recklessness. She needed to know for sure.
The BMW kept pace.
Now she knew.
Damn.
She fought her way into the narrower byways and alleys. The roads were congested. It became a slow-motion car chase.
She pulled up on a sidewalk to squeeze past a stall of traffic. Edging to the next cross street, a pedestrian alley, she turned into it. Startled strollers leaped out of her way. Shopping carts spilled. Obscenities flew. A loaf of bread hit her back window, thrown by a particularly irate matron.
At the next thoroughfare, she punched into second and sped a block, then made another turn, then another. This section of Rome was a maze of alleyways. There was no way for her tail to keep up with her.
Streaming out Via Aldrovandi, she raced around the edge of the Giardino Zoological Park. She kept a watch on her rearview mirrors. She had escaped her pursuit…at least for now.
Able to free up a hand, she snatched her cell phone. She hit the speed dial for Parioli Station. She needed backup.
As the connection dialed through, she left the main thoroughfare and ducked into the backstreets again, not taking any chances. Who had she pissed off? As a member of the Cultural Heritage Police, she had a number of enemies among the organized-crime families who trafficked in stolen antiquities.
The phone line clicked, buzzed, then all she heard was dead air. She checked the phone’s screen. She had hit a patch of poor reception. The seven hills of Rome and its marble-and-brick canyons wreaked havoc on signal strength.
She hit the Redial button.
As she prayed to the patron saint of cell reception, she used the time to debate returning home and decided against it.
She would be safer at the Vatican until she left for Germany.
Merging onto Via Salaria, the old Salt Road, a main artery through Rome, she finally heard the line connect.
“Central desk.”
Before she could respond, Rachel spotted a blur of black.
The BMW whipped up alongside her Mini Cooper.
A second car appeared on her other side.
Identical, except this one was white.
She’d had not the one tail…but two. Fixed on the conspicuous black car, she had failed to spot the white one. A fatal mistake.
The two cars slammed into her, pinning her between them with a screech of metal and paint. Their back windows were already lowered. The blunt noses of submachine guns poked out.
She slammed on her brakes, metal screamed, but she was wedged tight. There was no escape.
3
SECRETS
JULY 24, 10:25 A.M.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
HE HAD to get out of here.
In the gym locker room, Grayson Pierce pulled on a pair of black biker’s shorts, then slipped a loose-fitting nylon soccer jersey over his head. He sat on the bench and tied on a pair of sneakers.
Behind him, the locker room door swung open. He glanced back as Monk Kokkalis entered, a basketball under one arm and a baseball cap on backward. Standing only three inches over five feet, Monk looked like a pit bull wearing sweats. Still, he proved to be a fierce and agile ballplayer. Most people underestimated him, but he had an uncanny talent to read an opponent, to outfox any guard, and few of his layups ever missed.
Monk tossed the basketball into the equipment bin—again making a perfect shot—then crossed to his locker. He stripped off his sweatshirt, balled it up, and shoved it inside.
He eyeballed Gray. “That’s what you’re wearing to meet Commander Crowe?”
Gray stood. “I’m heading over to my folks’.”
“I thought the ops manager told us to stick to campus?”
“Screw that.”
Monk raised an eyebrow. The bushy brows were the only hair on his shaved head. He preferred to stick to the look drilled into him by the Green Berets. The man carried other physical attributes from his former military life: puckered bullet wound scars, three of them, shoulder, upper leg, and chest. He had been the only one of his team to survive an ambush in Afghanistan. During his recovery Stateside, Sigma had recruited him because of his genius-level IQ and retrained him through a doctoral program in forensic medicine.
“Have you already been cleared by medical?” Monk asked.
“Just contusions and a couple bruised ribs.” Along with a wounded ego, he added silently, fingering the tender spot below his seventh rib.
Gray had already given his videotaped debriefing. He had secured the bomb but not the Dragon Lady. The one lead into a major pipeline of bioweapons trafficking had escaped. He had sent her dragon-charm pendant down to forensics for any trace or fingerprint evidence. He didn’t expect anything to be found.
He grabbed his backpack from the bench. “I’ll have my beeper with me. I’m only fifteen minutes away by Metro.”
“And you’re going to leave the director waiting?”
Gray shrugged. He’d had enough: the postmission debriefing, the in depth medical exam, and now this mysterious summons by Director Crowe. He knew he was due for a dressing-down. He shouldn’t have gone in alone to Fort Detrick. It had been a bad call. He knew it.
But still riding the adrenaline surge from this morning’s near disaster, Gray couldn’t sit idle and simply wait. Director Crowe had gone off to a meeting over at DARPA headquarters in Arlington. There was no telling when he’d be back. In the meantime, Gray needed to move, to let off some steam.
He pulled on his small riding backpack.
“Have you heard who else has been summoned to the meeting with the director?” Monk asked.
“Who?”
“Kat Bryant.”
“Really?”
A nod.
Captain Kathryn Bryant had entered Sigma only ten months ago, but she had already completed a fast-track program in geology. There were rumors that she was also completing an engineering discipline. She would be only the second operative with a dual degree. Grayson was the first.
“Then it can’t be a mission assignation,” Gray said. “They wouldn’t send someone so green out into the field.”
“None of us is that green.” Monk grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. “She did come out of the intelligence branch of the Navy. Black ops, they say.”
“They say a lot of things,” Gray mumbled and crossed to the exit.
Despite the number of high IQs, Sigma was no less a rumor mill than any corporation. Even this morning’s summons had followed a flurry of memos a
nd a recall of operatives. Of course, some of this activity was the direct result of Gray’s mission. The Guild had attacked one of their members. Speculation abounded. Was there a new leak, or had the ambush been planned based on old intel, prior to Sigma’s move to Washington from DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington and the purging of its operations there?
Either way, another rumor persisted in the halls of Sigma: a new mission was being planned, one commanded high up the chain, one of vital national interest. But nothing else was known.
Gray refused to play the rumor game. He would wait to hear from the commander himself. Besides, it’s not like he would be going anywhere soon. He’d be warming the bench for some time.
So he might as well meet his other obligations.
Crossing out of the gym, Gray strode through the labyrinth of hallways toward the elevator bay. The space still smelled of fresh paint and old cement.
The subterranean stronghold of Sigma central command was once an underground bunker and a fallout shelter. It had been a place to secure an important think tank during World War II, but it had long been abandoned and closed off. Few knew of its existence, buried beneath the mecca of Washington’s scientific community: the campus of museums and laboratories that made up the Smithsonian Institution.
Now the underground warren had new tenants. To the world at large, it was just another think tank. Many of its members worked at laboratories throughout the Smithsonian, doing research and utilizing the resources at hand. The new site for Sigma had been chosen because of its proximity to all the research labs, covering a wide range of disciplines. It would have been too expensive to duplicate all the varied facilities. So Sigma had been buried at the heart of Washington’s scientific community. The Smithsonian Institution became both a resource and a cover.
Gray pressed his hand on the elevator door’s security pad. A blue line scanned his palm print. The doors whooshed open. He climbed inside and pressed the top button, marked LOBBY. The cage rose silently, climbing up from the fourth level.
He sensed more than felt the scan over his body, a proprietary search for hidden electronic data. It helped aid in the prevention of information being stolen out of the command center. It had its drawbacks. During the first week here, Monk had set off a system-wide alert after absentmindedly carrying in an unauthorized MP3 digital player after an afternoon run.
The doors opened into an ordinary-looking reception area, manned by two armed guards and a female receptionist. It could pass as a bank lobby. But the amount of surveillance and state-of-the-art countermeasures rivaled those at Fort Knox. A second entrance to the bunker, a large service access, equally guarded, lay hidden in a private garage complex, half a mile away. His motorcycle was over there, being repaired. So he was hoofing it to the Metro station where he had a mountain bike stored for emergencies.
“Good morning, Dr. Pierce,” the receptionist said.
“Hello, Melody.”
The young woman was unaware of what truly lay below, believing the fabricated story of the think tank, also named Sigma. Only the guards knew the truth. They nodded to Gray.
“Are you leaving for the day?” Melody asked.
“Only for an hour or so.” He slid his holographic ID card into the reader by the desk, then pressed his thumb on the screen, signing out of the command center. He had always thought the security countermeasures here were overkill. Not any longer.
The outer door’s lock unhitched.
One of the guards opened the door, stepped out, and held it open for Gray. “Good day, sir,” the guard said as Gray exited.
Good hardly described his day so far.
A long paneled corridor stretched ahead, followed by a single flight of stairs that led up into the public regions of the building. Entering a large hall, he passed a touring group of Japanese visitors led by a translator and guide. No one gave him a second glance.
Talk about hiding in plain sight.
As he crossed the tiled floor, he heard the tour leader’s speech, spoken in rote, given a thousand times. “The Smithsonian Castle was completed in 1855, with the cornerstone being laid by President James Polk. It is the largest and oldest of the Institution’s structures and once housed the original science museum and research laboratories, but now it serves as the administrative office and Information Center for the Institution’s fifteen museums, the National Zoo, and many research sites and galleries. If you’ll follow me, next…”
Gray reached the outer doors, a side exit to the Smithsonian Castle, and pushed to freedom. He squinted at the bright sun, shielding his eyes. As he lifted his arm, he felt a twinge of protest from his ribs. The Tylenol with codeine must be wearing off.
Reaching the edge of the manicured gardens, he glanced back to the Castle. Nicknamed for its red-brick parapets, turrets, spires, and towers, it was considered one of the finest Gothic Revival structures in the United States and formed the heart of the Smithsonian Institution. The bunker had been tunneled out beneath it, built when the southwest tower had burned to the ground in 1866, requiring it to be rebuilt from the ground up. The secret labyrinth had been incorporated in the renovation, eventually becoming the subterranean fallout shelter, meant to protect the brightest minds of its generation…or at least those in Washington, D.C.
Now it hid Sigma’s central command.
With a final glance at the U.S. flag flying over the highest tower, Gray headed across the Mall, aiming for the Metro station.
He had other responsibilities besides keeping America safe.
Something he had neglected for too long.
4:25 P.M.
ROME, ITALY
THE TWO BMWs continued to pin the Mini Cooper. No matter how Rachel struggled, she could not pull free.
The guns in the back seats swung forward.
Before the assailants could open fire, Rachel shoved the car into park and yanked her emergency brake. The car jolted with a scream of tearing metal. Her rearview mirror shattered. The effort threw off the gunmen’s aim, but it was not enough to free her trapped car.
The BMWs continued to drag her car forward.
With her Mini Cooper now dead weight, Rachel dove for the car’s floor well, gouging her left side on the gearshift knob. A spate of gunfire shattered through the driver’s-side window, passing through where she had been sitting.
She wouldn’t be so lucky a second time.
As their speed slowed, Rachel hit the controls to her convertible roof. The windows began to lower and the cloth roof folded back. Wind whistled inside.
She prayed the momentary distraction would buy her the time she needed. Bunching her legs under her, she leaped off the center console and used the lip of the passenger door to hurdle herself through the half-open roof. The white sedan was still crammed against the passenger side. She landed atop its roof and rolled into a half crouch.
By now, their speed had slowed to less than thirty kilometers per hour.
Bullets blasted from below.
She threw herself off the roof and flew toward a line of cars parked at the edge of the road. She struck the long roof of a Jaguar and slid belly-first off its edge and landed in a teeth-jarring tumble on the far side.
Dazed, she lay still. The bulk of parked cars shielded her from the open road. Half a block away, unable to brake fast enough, the BMWs suddenly roared and, with a squeal of tires, sped off.
In the distance, Rachel heard the wha-wha of police sirens.
Rolling onto her back, she searched her belt for her cell phone. The holster was empty. She had been making a call when the attackers swiped into her.
Oh God…
She struggled up. She had no fear that the assassins would return. Already multiple cars were stopping, blocked by her Mini Cooper stalled in the road.
Rachel had a larger concern. Unlike the first time, she had caught a glimpse of the black BMW’s license plate.
SCV 03681.
She didn’t need a registration search to know where the car had or
iginated. The special plates were only issued by one agency.
SCV stood for Stato della Città del Vaticano.
Vatican City.
Rachel struggled up, head aching. She tasted blood from a split lip. It didn’t matter. If she was attacked by someone with connections to the Vatican…
She gained her feet with her heart pounding. A driving fear fueled her strength. Another target was surely in danger.
“Uncle Vigor…”
11:03 A.M.
TAKOMA PARK, MARYLAND
GRAY! IS that you?”
Grayson Pierce hitched his bike over one shoulder and climbed the steps of the porch of his parents’ home, a bungalow with a wooden porch and a wide overhanging gable.
He called through the open screen door. “Yeah, Mom!”
He leaned the bike against the porch railing, earning a protest from his ribs. He had phoned the house from the Metro station, giving his mother fair warning of his arrival. He kept a Trek mountain bike locked up at the local station here for times like this.
“I have lunch almost ready.”
“What? You’re cooking?” He swung open the screen door with a pained cry of its spring hinges. It snapped closed behind him. “Will wonders never cease?”
“Don’t give me any of your lip, young man. I’m fully capable of making sandwiches. Ham and cheese.”
He crossed through the living room with its oak Craftsman furniture, a tasteful mix of modern and antique. He did not fail to note the fine coating of dust. His mother had never been much of a homemaker, spending most of her time teaching, first at a Jesuit high school back in Texas and now as an associate dean of biological sciences at George Washington University. His parents had moved out here three years ago, into the quiet historical district of Takoma Park, with its quaint Victorian homes and older shingle cottages. Gray had an apartment a couple of miles away, on Piney Branch Road. He had wanted to be close to his parents, to help out where he could.
Especially now.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked as he entered the kitchen, seeing his father was not present.