The Doomsday Key (34 page)

She stopped speaking, letting that sink in. Gray had to admit she was
right. Maybe he did have to look at the problem from the other way around, work backward.

She finally continued. “We know that Viatus took those mummies and experimented on them. But the bodies were discovered three years ago. So for years now the project has been running below anyone’s radar. I certainly wasn’t aware of it. Yet just as Father Giovanni makes a run for the Vatican, the Guild rises up. Anyone with an ear to the ground like mine could hear it. In the last twenty-four hours, they’ve exposed themselves more than I’ve seen them ever do before. It was what drew me to Italy in the first place, what made me seek out Rachel.”

Gray heard the smallest wince in her voice at the mention of Rachel’s name. She grew quiet after that.

Gray filled the silence. “Wallace believes that the key may be a counteragent against some early form of biowarfare. If the Guild can control the key, they can control the weapon.”

“You could be right, but the Guild’s interest lies deeper than that. Trust me.”

Gray fought against reacting to her last words.

Trust me.

Those were two words she had no right to utter.

He was saved from responding when Wallace lifted an arm ahead and pointed down to the ground. “Here it is!”

“Just think about it,” Seichan finished. “I’m going back to the tractor.”

Gray continued alone to the cave. Lyle had ducked into it. The entrance was shorter than Gray’s waist, but it opened into a tiny cave beyond. Kneeling, Gray pulled out a flashlight from his pack and played it over the inside. It was a natural cavern, and except for a dented beer can and a bit of trash, it was nondescript.

If this was Merlin’s final resting place, he needed to complain about the accommodations. No wonder Father Giovanni never gave it a second look.

“Nothing’s here,” Wallace finally concluded.

Gray agreed. “Let’s head over the hill.”

They walked briskly back as rain began to spatter harder. Once they
reached the trailer, they set off again. Lyle drove the tractor over the summit of the hill and down the far side.

Lowlands stretched ahead, again parceled out into tracts of farmland and grazing fields. But at the foot of the hill rose their destination. It was a square tower, half in rubble, rising in the middle of a cemetery. It was all that was left of Saint Mary’s Abbey. A newer chapel and chapel house stood off to one side. From this height, Gray could also make out some crumbled foundation walls of the old abbey.

As they descended, Lyle pointed to a small house in the distance. “Plas Bach!” he called out, naming the place. “You can rent that place. It’s also home to our famous apple tree.”

Gray reached into a pocket of his coat and realized he still had the apple tossed to him by Father Rye. As he stared at the pink apple, it reminded him of the abbey’s residents. Both the apple tree and the monks were described in various circles as uncommonly healthy and of amazing longevity. Had the monks of Saint Mary’s known some secret? Was it the same secret they all sought now, the key to the Doomsday Book? And if so, how did they come by it?

With a final belch of exhaust, reeking of oil, the tractor ground to a halt at the foot of the hill beside the cemetery. Celtic crosses dotted the grounds, including an especially tall one in the shadows of the abbey’s broken tower.

The group climbed out of the trailer bed and dusted off stray bits of straw. The downpour had mostly stopped, which was a relief. But lightning flashed to the north. Thunder rumbled a low warning of more rain to come. They had better work quickly.

Gray stepped over to Lyle. “You said Father Giovanni spent most of his time here. Do you happen to know what he was doing? Is there anywhere he concentrated on looking?”

Lyle shrugged with his whole body. “He was all over the ruins here. Mostly measuring.”

“Measuring?”

A nod answered him. “He had tape measures, and what do you call it?” He pantomimed with his arms, holding them askew and eyeballing
down them. “Little telescopes for figuring out how high things are and what not?”

“Surveying equipment,” Gray realized aloud. “Is there any place he spent lots of time measuring?”

“Aye. Our crosses and over by the old stone ruins.” “Ruins? You mean the abbey?”

Wallace stepped to Lyle’s other side. “I think the boy means the ruins of the ancients, don’t you, lad?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Can you show us?”

“Of course I can.” And he was off.

They followed as a group, crossing through the cemetery. Lyle pointed to each Celtic cross as he passed it. He ended at the tallest in the cemetery. It rose from a small hillock.

“This marks the grave of Lord Newborough,” Lyle said. “One of our most famous Bardsey nobles and a great benefactor to the Church.”

Gray craned up at it. Father Giovanni surely knew the significance of the Celtic crosses, how they were modifications of older Druid crosses, which likewise had been borrowed from the ancients who originally occupied the British Isles and carved that symbol on their standing stones.
One symbol that linked all three cultures, flowing from the ancient past to the present.

Had the key followed the same path? From ancients, to Celts, to Christians?

Wallace stared across the cemetery. “Father Giovanni measured all the crosses?”

“He did indeed.”

“And you said he did the same to some stone ruins?”

“Over this way.” Lyle circled the rubble of the abbey bell tower and marched into a grassy field. He kicked his feet as if looking for something. “Father Giovanni searched all the ancient hut circles. Most are on this side of the island.”

Wallace marched beside Gray. “No wonder the monks set their abbey here. It was common for the early Church to build on sacred sites. Stamping their religion on top of another. Both as a way of getting rid of it, but also to help the newly converted smoothly transition into the new faith.”

“Here!” Lyle called out from a few yards to the right. “I think this is the one!”

Gray crossed over with Wallace. The boy stood in the middle of a crude ring of stone blocks half-buried in the turf. Gray walked its circumference.

Wallace scratched his chin. “Are you sure this is the right hut circle? The one our friend was interested in?” Lyle suddenly didn’t look so certain.

Gray stopped at one of the stones. He knelt down and parted the grasses. He stared down at the stone and knew they were at the right place.

On the crude boulder was carved a symbol.

A spiral.

Gray stared across the field. He double-checked with his compass. In a direct path east from here, where the sun would rise on the new day, stood Lord Newborough’s grave marker, a giant Celtic cross, whose roots traced back to the same artisans who had carved the ragged spiral on the boulder at Gray’s feet.

“This is it,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” Wallace asked, not hearing him.

Gray continued to study the distant cross. He didn’t need any measuring tools, though he might not have figured it out so quickly if it hadn’t been for Lyle telling him about the painstaking survey the priest had done here.

“I know where Father Giovanni looked,” Gray said.

Rachel drew closer. “Where?”

“Between the spiral and the cross,” Gray said and pointed to Lord Newborough’s grave marker. “Like on the stones up at your excavation, Wallace. Crosses on one side, spirals on the other.”

“And like the leather satchel,” Rachel reminded him.

Gray nodded. “Though Marco never had that advantage. He had to figure all this out on his own. Going by only what he saw at the excavation site. It must have finally dawned on Marco. Possibly literally. Father Rye said that Marco became agitated last June, which meant he was here during the midsummer solstice. The longest day of the year. A sacred holiday for the pagans, especially those who worshiped the sun.”

He pointed to the cross and drew a line down to his toes. “I wager it would take calculations to prove it—something Marco likely did—that on the morning of the solstice, the sun’s first rays would strike that cross and cast a shadow pointed straight here.”

“And that led to Marco’s discovery?” Wallace pressed.

“Maybe. I can pace it out to be sure, but I don’t think I have to. Look what sits exactly midway between the cross and the spiral.”

Gray pointed at the pile of crumbling stones.

“Saint Mary’s tower,” Wallace said, then turned to him. “You think whatever Marco found was hidden beneath the tower?”

“You said it yourself. That the Church built its holy buildings atop older sacred sites. The island is riddled with caves. Caves that the Druids considered sacred. And stories continue to this day of some powerful magic, personified by Merlin, buried in a cave on the island. What if they got the cave wrong?”

Wallace’s voice grew hushed. “Not the Hermit’s Cave, but something hidden in secret under the abbey.”

Rachel asked a good question. “But how do you look under there?”

“That dead priest sure didn’t bulldoze his way in there,” Kowalski added.

They were both right. There were no signs of excavation around the tower ruins.

“There must be another way down there,” Gray said and turned to the best source for that information. “Lyle, are there any other tunnels or caves somewhere near here?”

“Aye. Lots of caves. But none too close.”

It would take them months to search them all. Gray stared over at Rachel. She stood with her arms crossed. They didn’t have months.

“But I can show you what I showed Father Giovanni!” Lyle suddenly said brightly. “It’s not a cave, but it’s just as good.”

“What?” Gray asked.

“Come see. My friends and I play down there all the time.” Lyle took off like a shot. They had to run to keep up with him.

“We’re not in that big of a hurry,” Kowalski grumbled.

“Speak for yourself,” Rachel said.

Lyle led them back around the tower. This time he headed in the opposite direction from before. He came almost full circle, but then stopped not far from the tall Celtic cross. He pointed to a square hole in the ground, framed by stones.

“What is it?” Wallace asked.

Gray dropped to his knees and stared down. The sides were stacked bricks. Near the bottom, a black niche was cut into one wall. “Like I said,” Lyle answered, “it’s not a cave.” Gray grabbed his flashlight. “It’s a crypt.”

“Aye. Lord Newborough’s tomb. Course he’s not down there any longer. At least I don’t think he is.”

“We have to search it,” Gray said.

Kowalski shook his head and backed two steps away. “No,
we
don’t. Whenever you go in a hole, bad things happen.”

20
October 13, 12:41 A.M.
Svalbard, Norway

Monk sent a silent prayer of thanks to the engineers who invented heated handgrips for snowmobiles. The day’s temperature continued to drop as the polar storm rolled across the Arctic archipelago. Even bundled in a snowsuit, helmet, gloves, and layers of thermal undergarments, Monk grew to appreciate the advancements of modern snowmobile technology.

He and Creed rested their vehicles in a snowy valley below the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Two hundred yards away, the angular concrete bunker stuck out of the side of Mount Plataberget. It was the only evidence of the vast underground depository.

That, and the patrolling Norwegian army.

Creed’s voice came over the radio in his helmet. “Got company coming.”

Monk twisted in his seat. Behind them, a two-man Sno-Cat came charging around an icy escarpment. Its tracks chewed across the terrain and cast up a rooster tail of ice and snow.

For the past hour, he and Creed had been playing a cautious game of cat and mouse with the outlying patrols. They tried their best to keep a wary distance without looking as if that was what they were doing. The rental company’s logo on the sides of their snowmobiles would only allow them so much latitude.

“What should we do?” Creed asked.

“Stay put.”

Their smaller machines could probably outmaneuver the bulkier Sno-Cat,