Map of Bones (13 page)

“That’s gold?” Rachel asked. “As in the precious metal?”

Sigma had provided the Vatican with cursory information on the tainted wafers, so their bakeries and supplies could be examined for further tampering. Its two spies had also been informed, but plainly they had their doubts.

“Are you sure?” Rachel asked.

Kat was already busy proving her assertion. She had an eyedropper in hand and dribbled its contents onto the glass. Gray knew what filled the eyedropper. They had all been supplied it by the labs back at Sigma for just this purpose. A cyanide compound. For years, miners had been using a process called heap leach cyanide recovery to dissolve gold out of old tailings.

Where the drop touched, the glass etched as if burned by acid. But rather than frosting the glass, the cyanide carved a trail of pure gold, a vein of metal in glass. There was no doubt.

Monsignor Verona stared, unblinking, one hand fingering his clerical collar. He mumbled, “And the streets of New Jerusalem will be paved with gold so pure as to be transparent glass.”

Gray glanced quizzically at the priest.

Vigor shook his head. “From the Book of Revelations…don’t mind me.”

But Gray saw the way the man drew inward, turning half away, lost in deeper thoughts. Did he know more? Gray sensed the priest was not so much holding back as needing time to dwell on something.

Kat interrupted. She had been leaning over her sample with a magnifying lens and an ultraviolet lamp. “I think there might be more than gold here. I can spot tiny pools of silver in the gold.”

Gray shifted closer. Kat allowed him to peer through her lens, shadowing the glass with her hand so the blue sheen of the ultraviolet light better illuminated the sample. The veins of metallic gold did indeed seem pocked with silvery impurities.

“It might be platinum,” Kat said. “Remember that the monatomic state occurs not just in gold but
any
of the transitional metals on the periodic table. Including platinum.”

Gray nodded. “The powder might not be pure gold, but a mix of several of the platinum series. An amalgam of various m-state metals.”

Rachel continued to stare at the etched glass. “Could the powder just be from the wearing down of the old sarcophagus? The gold crumbling with age or something?”

Gray shook his head. “The process to turn metallic gold into its m-state is complicated. Age alone won’t do this.”

“But the lieutenant might be onto something,” Kat said. “Maybe the device affected the gold in the reliquary and caused some of the gold to transmute. We still have no idea by what mechanism the device—”

“I may have one clue,” Monk said, cutting her off.

He stood by the shattered security case, where he had been collecting shards. He stepped to a bulky iron cross resting in a stanchion not far from the case.

“It looks like one of our forensic experts missed a shell,” Monk said. He reached out and plucked a hollow casing from beneath the feet of the crucified Christ figure. He took a step back again, held the casing out toward the cross, and let it go. It flew through six inches of air, and with a
ping
, stuck again to the cross.

“It’s magnetized,” Monk said.

Another
ping
sounded. Louder. Sharper. The cross spun half a turn in its stanchion.

For half a second, Gray did not comprehend what had happened.

Monk dove for the altar. “Down!” he screamed.

Other shots rang out.

Gray felt a kick to his shoulder, throwing him off kilter, but his body armor saved him from real injury. Rachel grabbed his arm and yanked him into a row of pews. Bullets chewed wood, sparked off marble and stone.

Kat ducked with the monsignor, shielding him with her body. She took a glancing shot to the thigh, half collapsing, but they fell together behind the altar with Monk.

Gray had only managed a quick glimpse of their attackers.

Men in hooded robes.

A sharp pop sounded. Gray glanced up to see a fist-sized black object arc across the breadth of the church.

“Grenade!” he screamed.

He scooped up his pack and shoved Rachel down the pew. They scrambled low and ran for the south wall.

3:20
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M
ONK BARELY
had time to react when Gray yelled. He grabbed Kat and the monsignor and flattened himself against them behind the stone altar.

The grenade hit the far side and exploded, sounding like a mortar blast. A cascade of marble shattered upward and outward, pelting the wooden pews. Smoke rolled and billowed up.

Half deafened by the blast, Monk simply hauled Kat and Vigor to their feet. “Follow me!”

It was death to stay out here in the open. Toss one grenade behind the altar, and they were all hamburger. They needed a more defensible position.

Monk dashed toward the north wall. Behind him, gunfire remained fierce. Gray was striking for the opposite wall. Just as well. Once in position, they could set up a crossfire across the center of the church.

Clear of the altar, Monk pounded across the sanctuary. He aimed for the nearest shelter, spotting a wide wooden door. The gunmen finally noted their escape. Shots spattered against the marble floor, ricocheted off a column, and tore into pews. The shots came from all directions now. More of the assailants had taken up positions deeper in the church, coming in other doors, cutting off escape, surrounding them.

They needed cover.

Monk yanked his own weapon from its straps. The snub-nosed shotgun. On the fly, he lifted the barrel in the crook of his left elbow and pulled the trigger. Along with the blast, he heard a sharp grunt from several pews away. Accuracy was not necessary with a Scattergun.

Shoving the barrel forward, he took crude aim at the door handle. It was too much to hope it was an exit to the outside, but it would at least get them clear of the central nave. From a few steps away, he pulled the trigger as he heard a faint protest from Monsignor Verona.

But there was no time for debate.

The blast punched a fist-sized hole through the door, taking the entire handle and lock with it. Still running, Monk hit the door. It banged open under his shoulder. He fell inside, followed by Kat and the monsignor. Kat turned, limping, and shoved the door closed.

“No,” the priest said.

Monk now understood the reason for his protest.

The vaulted room was the size of a single-car garage. He stared at the glass cases crowded with old robes and insignia, bits of sculpture. Gold shone from some of the cases.

It was the cathedral’s Treasure Chamber.

There was no exit.

Trapped.

Kat took up position, Glock in hand, and peered out the blasted hole. “Here they come.”

3:22
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R
ACHEL REACHED
the end of the pew, out of breath, heart thundering in her ears. Shots continued to pound their position, coming from all sides, gouging out chunks of wood from the flanking pews.

The grenade blast still echoed in her head, but her hearing was returning. Surely the priests and staff in the rectory had heard the explosion and had called the police.

The gunfire relented momentarily as the robed assailants repositioned themselves, closing up the center aisle.

“Make for that wall,” Gray urged. “Behind the pillars. I’ll cover you.”

Rachel spotted the nest of pylons that supported the vaulted roof. It offered better shelter than being pinned between a row of seats. She glanced back to the American.

“On my signal,” he said, crouching down. Their eyes met. She saw a thread of healthy fear, but also a determined concentration. He nodded to her, shifted around, readied himself, then shouted, “Go!”

Rachel dove out the end of the pew as gunfire erupted behind her, louder than their assailants’. The commander’s guns had no silencers.

She hit the marble floor and rolled behind the trio of pillars. She gained her feet immediately, back to the giant pillar. Carefully peeking around the curve, she spotted Commander Pierce backpedaling toward her, both pistols blazing.

A robed man down the end of the same pew fell backward, punched by the impacts. Another down the center aisle cried out and grabbed his neck as a spat of red arced out. The others had ducked from the American’s attack. Across the church, Rachel spotted five or six men converging on the door to the cathedral’s Treasure Chamber, firing almost nonstop.

As Commander Pierce reached her position, panting, Rachel swung to check the other side of her pillar, peering along the wall. So far no one had circled this way yet. But she had to assume they would soon.

“What now?” she asked, removing her pistol from a shoulder holster, the Beretta given to her by the Carabinieri driver back in Rome.

“This line of columns parallels the wall. We stick to cover. Shoot anything that moves.”

“And our goal?”

“To get the hell out of this death trap.”

Rachel frowned. What about the others?

The American must have noted her worry. “We’ll head for the streets. Draw off as many of the bastards as we can.”

She nodded. They would play decoy. “Let’s go.”

The pillars along the south wall were spaced only two meters apart. They proceeded briskly, staying low, using the rows of neighboring pews out in the nave as additional cover. Commander Pierce fired high, while Rachel discouraged any assailants from entering the alleyway between the wall and the pillars, picking off any shadows that moved.

The ploy worked. More gunfire concentrated on their position. But it also slowed them down, putting them at risk of a second grenade attack. They had only made it halfway down the nave, and it became impossible to leap from pillar to pillar.

The American took a blow to the back, splaying him out on the ground. Rachel gasped. But he pushed back up.

Rachel shifted down the alley, sticking close to the wall, pointing her gun back and forth. With her concentration fixed outward, she made the same mistake as the assailants had the prior night.

The door to the confessional swung open behind her. Before she could move, an arm lashed out and wrapped around her neck. Her weapon was knocked from her fingers. The cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against her neck.

“Don’t move,” a deep bass voice ordered as the commander swung around. The attacker’s arm felt like a tree trunk, strangling her breathing. He was tall, a giant of a man, practically hauling her to her toes. “Drop your weapons.”

The gunfire died out. It was clear now why a second grenade hadn’t been lobbed toward them. While the two of them thought they were escaping, the gunmen had been merely driving them into this trap.

“I’d do as he says,” a new voice said silkily, coming from the penitent’s booth neighboring the priest’s confessional. The door opened and a second figure stepped out, dressed in black leather.

It was no monk, but a woman. Slender, Eurasian.

She lifted her pistol, a black Sig Sauer. She pointed it at Gray’s face. “
Déjà vu
, Commander Pierce?”

3:26
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T
HE DOOR
was a problem. With the lock blown off, every strike of a bullet threatened to pop the door open. And they dared not keep it shouldered closed. Most of the rounds were stopped by the wood planks, but a few still found weak spots and cracked through, making Swiss cheese out of the door.

Monk kept one boot against the frame, anchoring the door with his heel, while keeping his body off to the side. Bullets pounded against the door, the impacts rattling up to his knee.

“Hurry it up back there,” he urged.

He pointed his shotgun out the hole in the door and fired blindly. The smoking shell casing ejected out of the weapon’s chamber, hit one of the long glass treasure cases, and bounced off of it. Beyond the door, the spray of the Scattergun kept the assailants wary, firing from a distance. It seemed the attackers knew their prey was trapped.

So what were they waiting for?

Monk expected a grenade to be lobbed against the door at any moment. He prayed the insulation of the stone wall would keep him alive. But what then? With the door blown away, they had no chance at all in here.

And rescue was unlikely. Monk had heard the chatter of Gray’s weapon echo across the church. It sounded like he was retreating toward the main doors. Monk knew that the commander was helping to draw the fire off their location. It was the only reason they were still alive.

But now Gray’s weapon had gone silent.

They were on their own.

A fresh barrage struck the door, rattling the frame, jarring his anchored leg. His thigh burned from the effort and had begun to tremble. “Guys, now or never!”

A rattle of keys drew his eye. Monsignor Verona had been struggling with a key ring, given to him by the cathedral’s caretaker. He fought to get the third bulletproof case open. Finally, with a cry of relief, he found the right key, and the front of the case swung open like a gate.

Kat reached over his shoulder and grabbed a long sword from the case. A fifteenth-century decorative weapon with a gold and jeweled hilt. But the blade, three feet long, was polished steel. She yanked it free and hauled it across the chamber. She kept out of the direct line of fire and stabbed the sword between the door and its frame, jamming and securing the door.

Monk pulled back his leg, rubbing his sore knee. “ ’Bout time.” He again shoved his shotgun through the hole in the door and fired—more in irritation than any hope of hitting anyone.

With the scatter of shot driving the attackers back a step, Monk risked a fast glance out. One of the assailants lay sprawled on his back, head half gone, blood pooled. One of his blind shots had found a target.

But now his attackers were finished taking potshots.

A black smooth pineapple bounced down the pew, aimed right at their door. Monk flung himself flat against the stone.

“Fire in the hole!”

3:28
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