Black Order

"What about Gray?" Kat asked.

Logan straightened a file with a firm tap on the desk, as if this settled the prior matter. Ever efficient, he shifted a second folder to the forefront and opened it. "There was an attempt on Commander Pierce's life an hour ago."

"What?" Monk leaned forward, a bit suddenly. "Then what's with all the weather reports?"

"Calm down. He's secure and awaiting backup." Logan gave the bullet points of events in Copenhagen, including Gray's survival. "Monk, I've arranged for you to join Commander Pierce. There's a jet waiting in Dulles, scheduled for wheels up in ninety-two minutes."

Monk had to give the man credit. He didn't even check his watch.

"Captain Bryant," Logan continued, turning to Kat. "In the interim, I'd like to keep you here while we monitor situations in Nepal. I have calls into our embassy in Kathmandu. I can use your experience with intelligences, domestic and foreign."

"Certainly, sir."

Monk was suddenly glad Kat had risen through the ranks in the intelligence branch. She would be Logan's right-hand man during this crisis. He'd rather have her here, bunkered safely below the Smithsonian Castle, than out in the field. It would be one less thing to worry about.

He found Kat staring at him. There was an angry set to her eyes, as if she could read his mind. He kept his face fixed and immobile.

Logan stood up. "Then I'll let you both get situated." He held open the door to his office, effectively dismissing them.

No sooner had the door closed behind them than Kat grabbed his arm, above the elbow, hard. "You're heading over to Denmark?"

"Yeah, so?"

"What about…?" She tugged him into the women's lavatory. It was empty at this late hour. "What about the baby?"

"I don't understand. What does—?"

"What if something happens to you?"

He blinked at her. "Nothing will happen."

She lifted his other arm, exposing his prosthetic hand. "You're not indestructible."

He lowered his arm, half hiding his hand behind him. His face heated up. "It's a babysitting operation. I'll support Gray as he finishes his work there. I mean, even Rachel's coming to town. Most likely I'll be their bloody chaperone. Then we'll be on the first flight back here."

"If it's so damn unimportant, let someone else go. I can tell Logan that I need your help here."

"Like he'll believe that."

"Monk…"

"I'm going, Kat. You're the one who wants to keep quiet about the pregnancy. I want to shout it out to the world. Either way, we have our duties. You have yours. I have mine. And trust me, I won't be reckless." He placed a hand on her belly. "I'll be protecting my ass for all three of us."

She covered his hand with her own and sighed. "Well, it is a pretty nice ass."

He smiled at her. She grinned back, but he also saw the exhaustion and worry in her eyes. He only had one answer for that.

He leaned in, lips touching, and whispered between them. "I promise."

"Promise what?" she asked, pulling back slightly.

"Everything," he answered and kissed her deeply.

He meant it.

"You can tell Gray," she said when they finally broke their embrace. "As long as you swear him to secrecy."

"Really?" His eyes brightened, then narrowed in suspicion. "Why?"

She stepped around him toward the mirror, but not before swatting his backside. "I want him watching your ass, too."

"All right. But I don't think he swings that way."

She shook her head and checked her face in the mirror. "What am I going to do with you?"

He stepped behind her and encircled her waist. "Well, according to Mr. Gregory, I do have ninety-two minutes."

12:15 p.m. HIMALAYAS

Lisa scrambled after Painter.

With the skill of a mountain goat, he led the way down a steep pitch, boulder-strewn and treacherous with frozen shale. Snow fell thickly over them, a shifting, billowing cloud that lowered visibility to a few feet, creating a strange, gray twilight. But at least they were out of the worst of the icy gusts. The deep notch they had worked down ran counter to the wind's direction.

Still, there was no escaping the frigid cold as the temperature plummeted. Even in her storm parka and gloves, she shivered. Though they had traveled less than a full hour, the heat of the burning monastery was a distant memory. The inches of exposed skin on her face felt windburned and abraded.

Painter had to be faring worse. He had donned a pair of thick pants and woolen mittens, stripped off one of the dead monks. But he had no insulating hood, only a scarf tied over the lower half of his face. His breath puffed white into the frigid air.

They had to find shelter.

And soon.

Painter offered her a hand as she slid on her butt down a particularly steep patch and gained his side. They had reached the bottom of the notch. It angled away, framed by steep walls.

The fresh snow had already accumulated to a foot's depth down here.

It would be hard trekking without snowshoes.

As if reading her worry, Painter pointed off to one side of the narrow cut. An overhang lipped out, offering protection from the weather. They set out for it, trudging through the drifts.

Once they reached the overhang, it became easier.

She glanced behind her. Already their steps were filling up with new snow. In minutes, they would be gone. While this certainly helped hide their path from any trackers, it still unnerved her. It was as if their very existence were being erased.

She turned around. "Do you have any idea where we're going?" she asked. She found herself whispering—not so much in fear of giving away their position but as the blanketing hush of the storm intimidated.

"Barely," Painter said. "These borderlands are uncharted territory. Much of it never trod by man." He waved an arm. "When I first arrived here, I did study some satellite survey shots. But they're not much practical use. The land's too broken. Makes surveys difficult."

They continued in silence for a few more steps.

Then Painter glanced back to her. "Did you know that back in 1999 they discovered Shangri-La up here?"

Lisa studied him. She couldn't tell if he was smiling behind his scarf, trying to ease her fear. "Shangri-La…as in Lost Horizon?" She remembered the movie and the book. A lost Utopian paradise frozen in time in the Himalayas.

Turning back around, he trudged on and explained. "Two National Geographic explorers discovered a monstrously deep gorge in the Himalayas a few hundred miles south of here, tucked under a mountain spur, a place that failed to show up on satellite maps. At the bottom lay a subtropical paradise. Waterfalls, fir and pine trees, meadows full of rhododendrons, streams lined by hemlock and spruce trees. A wild garden landscape, teeming with life, surrounded on all sides by ice and snow."

"Shangri-La?"

He shrugged. "Just shows you that science and satellites don't always reveal what the world wants to hide."

By now his teeth were chattering. Even the act of talking wasted breath and heat. They needed to find their own Shangri-La.

They continued in silence. The snow fell thicker.

After another ten minutes, the notch cut to one side in a tight switchback. Reaching the corner, the protective overhang disappeared.

They stopped and stared, despairing.

The notch cut steeply down from here, widening and opening. A veil of snow fell ahead of them, filling the world. Through occasional gusts, fluttering glimpses of a deep valley appeared.

It was no Shangri-La.

Ahead stretched an icy, snow-swept series of jagged cliffs, too steep to traverse without ropes. A stream tumbled down through the precipitous landscape in a series of towering waterfalls—the course frozen to pure ice, locked in time.

Beyond, misted by snow and ice fog, lay a deep gorge, appearing bottomless from here. The end of the world.

"We'll find a way down," Painter chattered.

He headed into the teeth of the storm again. The snow quickly climbed above their ankles, then midcalf. Painter plowed a path for her.

"Wait," she said. She knew he couldn't last much longer. He had gotten her this far, but they were not equipped to go any farther. "Over here."

She led him toward the cliff wall. The leeward side was somewhat sheltered.

"Where—?" he tried to ask, but his teeth rattled away his words.

She just pointed to where the frozen stream tumbled past the cliff overhead. Taski Sherpa had taught them survival skills up here. One of his strictest lessons. Finding shelter.

She knew by heart the five best places to look.

Lisa crossed to where the waterfall of ice reached their level. As instructed, she searched where the black rock met the blue-white ice. According to their guide, summer snowmelt turned the Himalayan waterfalls into churning torrents, capable of carving a deep pocket out of the rock. And by summer's end, the water flow receded and froze, often leaving an empty space behind it.

With relief, she saw this waterfall was no exception.

She sent a prayer of thanks to Taski and all his ancestors.

Using her elbow, she shattered a crust of rime and widened a black gap between ice and wall. A small cave opened beyond.

Painter joined her. "Let me make sure it's safe."

Turning on his side, he squeezed through—and disappeared. A moment later, a small light bloomed, illuminating the waterfall.

Lisa peered through the crack.

Painter stood a couple of steps away, penlight in hand. He swept his beam around the small niche. "Looks safe. We should be able to weather out the storm in here for some time."

Lisa pushed through to join him. Out of the wind and snow, it already felt warmer.

Painter flicked off his penlight. A light source wasn't really necessary. The ice wall seemed to collect whatever daylight the storm let through and amplified it. The frozen waterfall scintillated and glowed.

Painter turned to her, his eyes exceptionally blue, a match to the glowing ice. She searched his face for signs of frostbite. The wind's abrasion had turned his skin a deep ruddy hue. She recognized his Native American heritage in the planes of his face. Striking with his blue eyes.

"Thanks," Painter said. "You may have just saved our lives."

She shrugged, glancing away. "I owed you the favor."

Still, despite her dismissive words, a part of her warmed at his appreciation—more than she would have expected.

"How did you know how to find—?" Painter's last words were lost to a hard sneeze. "Ow."

Lisa shrugged out of her pack. "Enough questions. We both need to warm up."

She opened her medical pack and tugged out an MPI insulating blanket. Despite its deceptive thinness, the Astrolar fabric would retain ninety percent of radiated body heat. And she wasn't counting on just body heat.

She pulled out a compact catalytic heater, vital gear in mountaineering.

"Sit," she ordered Painter, spreading the blanket over the cold rock.

Exhausted, he didn't offer any argument.

She joined him and swept it over them both, forming a cocoon. Nestling inside, she pressed the electronic ignition for her Coleman Sport-Cat heater. The flameless device operated on a small butane cylinder that lasted fourteen hours. Using it sparingly and intermittently, along with the space blanket, they should be able to last two or three days.

Painter shivered next to her as the heater warmed.

"Take off your gloves and boots," she said, doing the same. "Warm your hands over the heater and massage fingers, toes, nose, ears."

"Against f…frostbite…"

She nodded. "Pile as much clothing between you and the rock to limit heat loss from conduction."

They stripped and feathered their nest with goose down and wool.

Soon the space felt almost balmy.

"I have a few PowerBars," she said. "We can melt snow for water."

"A regular backwoods survivalist," Painter said a bit more steadily, optimism returning as they warmed.

"But none of this will stop a bullet," she said. She stared over at him, almost nose to nose under the blanket.

Painter sighed and nodded. They were out of the cold, but not out of danger. The storm, a threat before, offered some protection. But what then? They had no means of communication. No weapons.

"We'll stay hidden," Painter said. "Whoever firebombed the monastery won't be able to track us. Searchers will come looking when the storm clears. Hopefully with rescue helicopters. We can signal them with that road flare I saw in your emergency pack."

"And just hope the rescuers reach us before the others."

He reached and squeezed her knee. She appreciated the fact that he didn't offer any false words of encouragement. No candy-coating their situation. Her hand found his and held tight. It was encouragement enough.

They remained silent, lost in their own thoughts.

"Who do you think they are?" she finally asked softly.

"Don't know. But I heard the man swear when I knocked into him. In German. Felt like hitting a tank."

"German? Are you sure?"

"I'm not sure of anything. Probably a hired mercenary. He obviously had some military training."

"Wait," Lisa said. She wiggled around to her pack. "My camera."

Painter sat straighter, shaking loose a corner of the blanket. He tucked it under to close the gap. "You think you might have a picture of him?"

"To operate the strobe flash, I set the camera to continuous shooting. In that mode, the digital SLR takes five frames per second. I have no idea what got captured." She twisted around, thumbing on the camera.

Shoulder to shoulder, they stared at the tiny LCD screen on the back of the camera body. She brought up the last shots. Most were blurry, but as she flipped through the series, it was like watching a slow-motion replay of their escape: the startled response of the assassin, his raised arm as he instinctively tried to shield his eyes, his gunfire as she ducked behind her barrel, Painter's crash into him.

A few shots had captured slices of the man's face. Piecing the jigsaw together, they had a rough composite: blond-white hair, brutish brow, prominent jaw. The last shot in the series must have been taken as she leaped over Painter and the assassin. She captured a great close-up of his eyes, his night-vision scopes knocked over one ear. Anger blazed, a wildness accentuated by the red-eyed pupils in the camera flash.

Lisa flashed back to Relu Na, the distant relation of Ang Gelu who had attacked them with a sickle. The maddened monk's eyes had glowed similarly. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather washed over her bare skin.

She also noted one other thing about the eyes.

They were mismatched.

One eye shone a brilliant Arctic blue.

The other was a dead white.

Maybe it was just flash washout…

Lisa hit the back arrow and recycled through the photos to the beginning.

She overshot and brought up the last picture stored in the camera before the series in the root cellar. It was a picture of a wall, scrawled and scratched in blood. She had forgotten she had taken it.

"What's that?" Painter asked.

She had already related the sad story of the head of the monastery, Lama Khemsar. "That's what the old monk had been writing on the wall. It looks like the same series of marks. Over and over again."

Painter leaned closer. "Can you zoom in?"

She did, though some crispness and clarity pixilated away.

Painter's brow knit together. "It's not Tibetan or Nepalese. Look at how angular the script is. Looks more like Nordic runes or something."

"Do you think so?"

"Maybe." Painter leaned back with a tired groan. "Either way, it makes you wonder if Lama Khemsar knew more than he let on."

Lisa remembered something she had failed to tell Painter. "After the old monk cut his throat, we found a symbol carved into his chest. I dismissed it as just raving and coincidence. But now I'm not so sure."

"What did it look like? Can you draw it?"

"No need to. It was a swastika."

Painter's brows rose. "A swastika?"

"I think so. Could he have been flashing back to the past, acting out something that frightened him?"

Lisa related the story of Ang Gelu's relative. How Relu Na had fled the Maoist rebels, traumatized by their growing brutality as they took sickles to the limbs of innocent farmers. Then Relu Na did the same when the illness sapped the man's sanity, acting out some deep-seated trauma.

Painter frowned as she finished. "Lama Khemsar was somewhere in his mid-seventies. That would place him in his early to midteens during World War II. So it's possible. The Nazis had sent research expeditions into the Himalayas."

"Here? Why?"

Painter shrugged. "The story goes that Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, was fixated on the occult. He studied ancient Vedic texts of India, dating back thousands of years. The bastard came to believe that these mountains were once the birthplace of the original Aryan race. He sent expeditions looking for proof. Of course, the man was a few fries short of a Happy Meal."

Lisa smiled at him. "Still, maybe the old lama had some run-in with one of those early expeditions. Hired as a guide or something."

"Maybe. But we'll never know. Whatever secrets there were died with him."

"Maybe not. Maybe that was what he was trying to do up in his room. Letting go of something horrible. His subconscious trying to absolve itself by revealing what he knew."

"That's a lot of maybes." Painter rubbed his forehead, wincing. "And I have one more. Maybe it was just gibberish."

Lisa had no argument against that. She sighed, tiring rapidly as the adrenaline of their flight wore off. "Are you warm enough?"

"Yeah, thanks."

She switched off the heater. "Need to conserve the butane."

He nodded, then failed to stop a jaw-popping yawn.

"We should try to get some sleep," she said. "Take shifts."

Hours later, Painter woke, startled awake by someone shaking his shoulder. He sat up from where he had been leaning against the wall. It was dark out.

The wall of ice before him was as pitch-black as the rock.

At least the storm seemed to have died down.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Lisa had dropped a section of their blanket.

She pointed an arm and whispered, "Wait."

He shifted closer, shedding any sleepiness. He waited half a minute. Still nothing. The storm definitely seemed to have subsided. The wind's howl was gone. Beyond their cave, a winter's crystalline quiet had settled over the valley and cliffs. He strained to hear anything suspicious.

Something had definitely spooked Lisa.

He sensed her raw fear. It practically vibrated out of her tense body.

"Lisa, what's—?"

Suddenly the wall of ice flickered brilliantly, as if fireworks had ignited in the sky outside. There was no noise. The scintillating radiance cascaded up along the falls and away. Then the ice went dark again.

"The ghost lights…" Lisa whispered and turned to him.

Painter flashed to three nights ago. When this had all started. The illness in the village, the madness in the monastery. He remembered Lisa's earlier assessment. Proximity to the strange lights was directly related to the severity of the symptoms.

And now they were in the heart of the badlands.

Closer than ever.

As Painter watched, the frozen waterfall flared again with a shining and deadly brilliance. The ghost lights had returned.

5 SOMETHING ROTTEN

6:12 p.m.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Does nothing ever start on time in Europe?

Gray checked his wristwatch.

The auction had been slated to start at five o'clock.

Trains and buses might be efficient enough to set your clock by here, but when it came to scheduled events, it was anyone's guess. It was already after six. The latest consensus was that the auction's start would be closer to six-thirty, due to some late arrivals, as a storm off the North Sea was delaying air traffic into Copenhagen.

Bidders were still arriving below.

As the sun sank away, Gray had positioned himself on a second-story balcony of the Scandic Hotel Webers. It sat across the street from the home of Ergenschein Auction House, a modern four-story building that seemed more art gallery than auction establishment, with its modern Danish minimalist style, all glass and bleached woods. The auction was to take place in the house's basement.

And hopefully soon.

Gray yawned and stretched.

Earlier, he had stopped at his original hotel near Nyhavn, quickly collected his surveillance gear, and checked out. Under a new name with a new MasterCard, he had booked into this hotel. It offered a panoramic view of Copenhagen's City Square, and from the private balcony, he could hear the distant titter and music of one of the world's oldest amusement parks, Tivoli Gardens.

He had a laptop open with a half-eaten hot dog from a street vendor resting beside it. His only meal of the day. Despite rumors, the life of an operative was not all Monte Carlo casinos and gourmet restaurants. Still, it was a great hot dog, even if it cost almost five dollars American.

The image on the laptop screen shivered as the motion-sensitive camera snapped a rapid series of pictures. He had already captured two dozen participants: stiff bankers, dismissive Eurotrash, a trio of bull-necked gentlemen in shiny suits with mafioso stamped on their foreheads, a pudgy woman in professorial attire, and a foursome of white-suited nouveau riche wearing identical matching sailor caps. Of course, these last spoke American. Loudly.

He shook his head.

There couldn't possibly be too many more arrivals.

A long black limousine pulled up to the auction house. Two figures stepped out. They were tall and lean, dressed in matching black Armani suits. His and hers. He wore a robin's egg blue tie. She wore a silk blouse of a matching hue. Both were young, midtwenties at best. But they carried themselves as if much older. Maybe it was the bleached white hair, coiffed almost identically, short, pasted to the scalp, looking like a pair of silent-movie stars from the Roaring Twenties. Their manner gave them an ageless grace. No smiles, but not cold. Even in the snapshots, there was a friendly amusement in their eyes.

The doorman held the door open for them.

They each nodded their thanks—again not overly warm, but acknowledging the man's gesture. They vanished inside. The doorman stepped after them, turning a sign. Plainly this couple was the last, and perhaps in fact the very reason the auction had been delayed until now.

Who were they?

He stowed his curiosity. He had his orders from Logan Gregory.

He reviewed his pictures to ensure he had clean images of each participant. Satisfied, he backed the file onto a flash-disk and pocketed it. Now all he had to do was wait for the auction to end. Logan had arranged to obtain a list of sale items and names of successful bidders. Surely a few would be aliases, but the information would be shared with the U.S. task force on terrorism and eventually Europol and Interpol. Whatever was really afoot here might never be known to Gray.

Like why was he attacked? Why had Grette Neal been killed?

Gray forced his fist to relax. It had taken all afternoon, but in a calmer frame of mind, Gray had learned to accept the restraints Logan had placed on him. He had no idea what was really going on here, and to operate blindly, rashly, might only get more people killed.

Still, a large measure of guilt ached at the base of his spine, making it difficult to sit still. He had spent most of the afternoon pacing his hotel room. The past days had replayed in his mind over and over again.

If he had been more careful to start…taken more precautions…

Gray's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking it out, he checked the incoming number. Thank God. He snapped open the phone, stood, and stepped to the balcony railing.

"Rachel…I'm glad you called back."

"I got your message. Are you all right?"

He heard both the personal concern and the professional interest in a more thorough debriefing. He had left her only a short note on her cell phone, warning that their rendezvous would have to be cut short. He hadn't gone into the details. Despite their relationship, there were security clearances involved.

"I'm fine. But Monk is flying in. He'll be here a little after midnight."

"I've just arrived in Frankfurt myself," Rachel said. "Laying over for my last leg to Copenhagen. I checked my messages after we landed here."

"Again. I'm sorry…"

"So I should head back?"

He feared involving her in any way. "It would be best. We'll have to reschedule. Perhaps if things calm down here, I can make a short side trip to Rome and visit you there before returning to the States."

"I would like that."

He heard the disappointment in her voice.

"I'll make it up to you," he said, hoping it was a promise he could keep.

She sighed—not in irritation, but in understanding. They were not naive about their long-distance relationship. Two continents, two careers. But they were willing to work on it…to see where it would lead.

"I'd hoped we would have a chance to talk," Rachel said.

He knew what she meant, reading the deeper meaning behind her words. They had been through much together, witnessed both the good and the bad in each other, and still, despite the difficulty in a long-distance romance, neither had been willing to throw in the towel. In fact, both of them knew that it was time to discuss the next step.

Shortening that distance.

It was probably one of the reasons that they'd been so long apart since the last rendezvous. Some unspoken acknowledgment that they both needed time to think. Now it was time to lay the cards on the table.

Move forward or not.

But did he even have an answer? He loved Rachel. He was ready to make a life with her. They had even talked about kids. Still…something unsettled him. Made him almost relieved their tryst here had been delayed. It wasn't something as mundane as cold feet. So then what was it?

Maybe they had better talk.

"I'll get to Rome," he said. "I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that. I'll even keep some of Uncle Vigor's vermicelli alia panna warming on the stove." He heard the tension easing from her voice. "I miss you, Gray. We—"

Her next words were cut off by the strident beep of a car horn.

Gray glanced down to the street. Below, a figure ran across two lanes, heedless of traffic. A woman in a cashmere jacket and ankle-length dress, hair bundled up in a bun. Gray almost didn't recognize her. Not until she flipped off the driver who had honked.

Fiona.

What the hell was the girl doing here?

"Gray—?" Rachel said in his ear.

He spoke in a rush. "I'm sorry, Rachel…I have to run."

He hung up, pocketing his cell phone.

Below, Fiona rushed to the auction house door and pushed inside. Gray darted back to his laptop. His camera captured the girl's image through the glass entrance. She was arguing with the doorman. Finally, the uniformed man checked a paper she shoved into his hands, scowled, and waved her farther inside.

Fiona bulled past him and disappeared. The camera went dark.

Gray glanced between laptop and street.

Damn it…

Logan would not be happy. No rash actions.

Still, what would Painter Crowe do?

Gray swung back inside and stripped out of his street clothes. His suit jacket lay on the bed. Ready in case of emergency.

Painter certainly would not sit calmly and do nothing.

10:22 p.m. HIMALAYAS

"We have to remain calm," Painter said. "Sit tight."

Before them, the ghost lights continued to flare and subside, wintry and silent, igniting the icy waterfall into a shattering brilliance, then dying away. In the resulting darkness, the cave seemed colder and blacker.

Lisa shifted closer to him. Her hand found his, squeezing all the blood from his palm.

"No wonder they hadn't bothered tracking us," she whispered, breathless with fear. "Why hunt through this storm, when all they have to do is turn those damn lights back on and irradiate us? We can't hide from that."

Painter realized she was right. Maddened, they would be without defenses. In such a senseless state, the treacherous landscape and frigid cold would kill them as surely as any sniper's bullet.

But he refused to give up hope.

The madness took hours to take hold. He would not waste those hours. If they could reach help in time, perhaps there was a way to reverse the effect.

"We'll get through this," he said lamely.

This only irritated her.

"How?"

She turned to him as the lights flared again, sparkling the cavern with a diamondlike sheen. Lisa's eyes shone with less terror than he had imagined. She was fearful—and rightfully so—but there remained a hard glint, also diamondlike.

"Don't talk down to me," Lisa said, slipping her hand from his. "That's all I ask."

Painter nodded. "If they're trusting the radiation or whatever to kill us, they may not be watching the mountains that well. With the storm over, we can—"

A spatter of gunfire erupted, splintering the winter's quiet.

Painter met Lisa's gaze.

It sounded close.

Proving that, a spate of bullets cracked into the wall of ice. Painter and Lisa scrambled back, shedding their space blanket. They retreated to the rear of the small cave. There was no escape.

By now, Painter noted something else.

The ghost light had not faded as it had before. The frozen waterfall remained aglow with its deadly brilliance. The light held steady, pinning them down.

A bullhorn boomed. "Painter Crowe! We know you and the woman are hiding there!"

The commanding voice had a feminine lilt. Also accented.

"Come out! Hands high!"

Painter gripped Lisa's shoulder, squeezing as much reassurance into her as he could. "Stay here."

He pointed to their discarded outerwear, motioning Lisa to suit up. He shoved into his own boots, then edged to the break in the ice. He poked his head out.

As was common in the highlands, the storm had broken apart as quickly as it had struck. Stars shone across the black sky. The Milky Way arched over the wintry valley, etched in snow and ice, patched with mists of ice fog.

Closer at hand, a spotlight pierced the night, its beam centered on the frozen waterfall. Fifty yards away on a lower cliff, a shadowy figure straddled a snowmobile, operating the searchlight. It was only an ordinary lamp, possibly xenon from its intensity and bluish tint.

It was no mysterious ghost light.

Painter felt a surge of relief. Had that been the light all the time, marking the approach of the vehicles? Painter counted five of them. He also counted the score of figures in white parkas, spread across the lower tier and to either side. They all bore rifles.

With no other choice—and damn curious to boot—Painter held up his arms and stepped free of the cave. The nearest gunman, a hulk of a man, sidled closer, rifle leveled. A tiny beam of light traced Painter's chest. A laser sight.

Weaponless, Painter could only stand his ground. He weighed the odds of manhandling the rifle from the gunman.

Not good.

Painter met the eyes of the gunman.

One an icy blue, the other a frosted white.

The assassin from the monastery.

He remembered the man's ungodly strength. No, the odds were not good. And besides, with the number of men here, what would he do if he succeeded?

From behind the man's shoulder, a figure stepped into view. A woman. Perhaps the same who had used the bullhorn a moment ago. She reached and used a single finger to push the assassin's rifle down. Painter doubted any man would have the strength to do that.

As she stepped forward, Painter studied her in the spotlight's glare. She had to be in her late thirties. Bobbed black hair, green eyes. She wore a heavy white parka with a fur-lined hood. Her form was shapeless beneath her outerwear, but she appeared svelte and moved with a toned grace.

"Dr. Anna Sporrenberg," she said and held out a hand.

Painter stared at her glove. If he pulled her to him, got an arm around her throat, tried to use her as a hostage…

Meeting the assassin's eyes over her shoulder, Painter thought better. He reached out and shook the woman's hand. Since they hadn't shot him yet, he could at least be polite. He would play this game as long as it kept him alive. He had Lisa to consider, too.

"Director Crowe," she said. "It seems there has been much chatter over the past few hours across the international intelligence channels regarding your whereabouts."

Painter kept his face fixed. He saw no reason to deny his identity. Perhaps he could even use it to his advantage. "Then you know the extent to which those same resources will go to find me."

"Natürlich,"she nodded, slipping into German. "But I would not count on their success. In the meantime, I must ask you and the young woman to accompany me."

Painter took a warding step back. "Dr. Cummings has nothing to do with any of this. She was only a health care worker coming to the aid of the sick. She knows nothing."

"We'll know the truth of that soon enough."

So there it was, plainly stated. They were alive for the moment only because of their suspected knowledge. And that knowledge would be extracted through blood and pain. Painter considered making a move now. Getting it over with. A fast death over a slow agonizing one. He had too much sensitive Intel in his head to risk torture.

But he was not alone out here. He pictured Lisa, warming her hands with his. As long as they lived, there was hope.

Other guards joined them. Lisa was forced out of the cave at gunpoint. They were led to the snowmobiles.

Lisa met his eyes, fear shining bright.

He was determined to protect her to the best of his ability.

Anna Sporrenberg joined them as they were being bound. "Before we head out, let me speak plainly. We can't let you go. I think you understand that. I won't give you that false hope. But I can promise you a painless and peaceful end."

"Like with the monks," Lisa said harshly. "We witnessed your mercy there."

Painter tried to catch Lisa's eye. Now was not the time to antagonize their captors. The bastards obviously had no compunction against killing out of hand. They both needed to play the cooperative prisoner.

Too late.

Anna seemed to truly see Lisa for the first time, turning to her. A bit of heat entered the woman's voice. "It was mercy, Dr. Cummings." Her eyes flicked to the assassin who still kept guard. "You know nothing of the illness that struck the monastery. Of what horrors awaited the monks. We do. Their deaths were not murder, but euthanasia."

"And who gave you that right?" Lisa asked.

Painter shifted closer. "Lisa, maybe—"

"No, Mr. Crowe." Anna stepped closer to Lisa. "What right, you ask? Experience, Dr. Cummings. Experience. Trust me when I tell you…the deaths up there were a kindness, not a cruelty."

"And what about the men I came up here with in the helicopter? Was that a kindness,too?"

Anna sighed, tiring of their words. "Hard choices had to be made. Our work here is too important."

"And what about us?" Lisa called as the woman turned away. "It's a painless needle if we cooperate. But what if we don't feel like cooperating?"

Anna headed toward the lead snowmobile. "There will be no thumbscrews, if that's what you mean. Drugs only. We are not barbarians, Dr. Cummings."

"No, you're only Nazis!" Lisa spat at her. "We saw the swastika!"

"Don't be foolish. We're not Nazis." Anna glanced calmly back to them as she hiked her leg over the seat to the snowmobile. "Not anymore."

6:38 p.m.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Gray hurried across the street toward the auction house.

What was Fiona thinking, barging in here after what happened?

Concern for her safety weighed heavily. But Gray also had to admit that her intrusion offered him the excuse he needed. To attend the auction in person. Whoever had firebombed the shop, murdered Grette Neal, and tried to kill him…their trail led here.

Gray reached the sidewalk and slowed. The slanting rays of the setting sun turned the door to the auction house into a silvery mirror. He checked his clothes, having dressed in a frenzy of fine tailoring. The suit, a navy Armani pinstripe, fit well, but the starched white shirt was tight at the collar. He straightened the pale yellow tie.

Not exactly inconspicuous. But he had to play the role of the buyer for an affluent American financier.

He pushed through the door to the auction house. The lobby was pure Scandinavian design, meaning a total lack thereof: bleached wood, glass partitions, and little else. The only furniture was a bony sculptural chair positioned next to a side table the size of a postage stamp. It held up a single potted orchid. Its reedlike stem supported an anemic brown and pink blossom.

The doorman tapped his cigarette into the plant's pot and stepped toward Gray with a sour expression.

Gray reached to a pocket and pulled out his invitation. It had required wiring a quarter-million-dollar deposit into the house's fund, a guarantee that the buyer had the wherewithal to attend such an exclusive event.

The doorman checked his invitation, nodded, and strode over to a velvet rope that closed off a wide set of stairs that led to the lower level. He unhitched the rope and waved Gray through.

At the bottom of the stairs, a set of swinging doors opened into the main bidding floor. A pair of guards flanked the entrance. One held a metal-detecting wand. Gray allowed himself to be searched, arms out. He noted the video cameras posted to either side of the threshold. Security was snug. Once he was cleared, the other guard buzzed a button and pulled open the door.

The murmur of voices flowed out to him. He recognized Italian, Dutch,

French, Arabic, and English. It seemed all the world had shown up for the auction.

Gray entered. A few glances were made in his direction, but most attention remained focused on the glass cases that lined the walls. Employees of the auction house, dressed in identical black attire, stood behind the counter, like at a jewelry store. They wore white gloves and helped patrons view the objects up for bid.

A string quartet played softly in one corner. A few servers circulated, offering tall glasses of champagne to the guests.

Gray checked in at a neighboring desk and was given a numbered paddle. He moved farther inside. A handful of patrons had already taken their seats. Gray spotted the pair of latecomers who had held up the auction, the pale young man and woman, the silent-movie stars. They sat in the front row. A paddle rested on the woman's lap. The man leaned over and whispered in his partner's ear. It was a strangely intimate gesture, perhaps enhanced by the woman's arched neck, long and lithe, tilted as if awaiting a kiss.

Her eyes flicked to Gray as he moved down the center aisle. Her gaze flowed over him and away.

No recognition.

Gray continued his own search, reaching the front of the room with its raised stage and podium. He turned in a slow circle. He saw no outward threat to his presence.

He also saw no sign of Fiona.

Where was she?

He edged to one of the glass cases and wandered down the far side. His ears were half tuned to the conversations around him. He walked past an attendant lifting and gently resting a bulky leather-bound book atop the display case for a portly gentleman. The interested party leaned close, a pair of spectacles resting at the tip of his nose.

Gray noted the particular book.

A treatise on butterflies with hand-drawn plates, circa 1884.

He continued down the aisle. Once near the door again, he found himself confronted by the dowdy woman he had filmed earlier. She was holding out a small white envelope. Gray accepted it, even before he wondered what it could be. The woman seemed disinterested in anything further and wandered away.

Gray's me I led a hint of perfume on the envelope.

Strange.

He used a thumbnail to break the seal and pulled out a folded piece of stationery, expensive from its watermark. A short note was neatly written.

EVEN THE GUILD KNOWS BETTER THAN TO STRAY TOO NEAR THIS FLAME. WATCH YOUR BACK. KISSES.

The note was unsigned. But at the bottom, inked in crimson, was the symbol of a small curled dragon. Gray's other hand wandered to his neck, where a matching dragon hung in silver, a gift from a competitor.

Seichan.

She was an operative for the Guild, a shady cartel of terrorist cells that had crossed paths with Sigma Force in the past. Gray felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He turned and searched the room. The dowdy woman who had handed him the note had vanished.

He glanced again at the note.

A warning.

Better late than never…

But at least the Guild was taking a pass here. That is, if Seichan could be believed…

Actually Gray was willing to take her at her word.

Honor among thieves and all that.

A commotion drew his attention toward the rear of the room.

A tall gentleman swept onto the bidding floor through a back door.

Resplendent in a tuxedo, he was the esteemed Mr. Ergenschein himself, acting as auctioneer. He palmed his oiled black hair into place—clearly a dye job. Across his cadaverous features, a smile was fixed on his face, as if pasted from a book.

The reason for his clear discomfort followed behind. Or rather was being led by a guard who had a hand clamped on her upper arm.

Fiona.

Her face was flushed. Her lips set in a line of dread, bled of color.

Furious.

Gray headed toward them.

Ergenschein strode off to the side. He carried an object wrapped in a soft unbleached chamois. He stepped over to the main display case near the front. It had been empty before. One of the staff unlocked the cabinet. Ergenschein gently unwrapped the object and settled it into the case.

Noting Gray's approach, the auctioneer brushed his hands together and stepped over to meet him, allowing his palms to come to rest as if in prayer. Behind him, the cabinet was locked by an attendant.

Gray noted the addition to the case.

The Darwin Bible.

Fiona's eyes widened when she spotted Gray.

He ignored her and confronted Ergenschein. "Is there a problem here?"

"Of course not, sir. The young lady's being escorted out. She has no invitation to this auction."

Gray took out his own card. "I believe I'm allowed a guest in attendance." He held out his other hand for Fiona. "I'm glad to see she's already here. I was held up on a conference call with my buyer. I approached the young Ms. Neal earlier today to inquire about a private sale. One item in particular."

Gray nodded to the Darwin Bible.

Ergenschein's entire body sighed with feigned sadness. "A tragedy. About the fire. But I'm afraid that Grette Neal signed her lot to the auction house. Without a countermand from her estate's barrister, I'm afraid the lot must be put up for auction. That is the law."

Fiona tugged on the guard's arm, murder in her eyes.

Ergenschein seemed oblivious of her. "I'm afraid you'll have to bid yourself, sir. My apologies, but my hands are tied."

"Then in that case, you certainly wouldn't mind that Ms. Neal remains at my side. To aid me if I wish to inspect the lot?"

"As you wish." Ergenschein's smile wore into a brief frown. He made a vague dismissive wave to the guard. "But she must stay with you at all times. And as your guest, she is your responsibility."

Fiona was released. As Gray led her toward the back, he noted the guard flanked them along the edge of the room. It seemed they had gained their own personal bodyguard.

Gray herded Fiona into the last row. A chime sounded, announcing that the auction would commence in another minute. Seats began to fill, mostly near the front. Gray and Fiona had the back row to themselves.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered.

"Getting back my Bible," she said with thick disdain. "Or at least trying to."

She slumped back in her seat, arms crossed over her leather purse.

Off to the front, Ergenschein took the podium and made some formal introductions. The proceedings would be in English. It was the most common language among the auction's international clientele. Ergenschein elaborated on the rules of bidding, the house's premium and fees, even proper etiquette. The most important rule was that you were only allowed to bid up to ten times the amount placed and secured on deposit.

Gray ignored most of it, continuing with Fiona, earning a few disgruntled glances from those in the row ahead.

"You came back for the Bible? Why?"

The girl only tightened her arms.

"Fiona…"

She turned to him, hard and angry. "Because it was Mutti's!" Tears glistened. "They killed her over it. I won't let them have it."

"Who?"

She waved an arm. "Whoever sodding murdered her. I'm going to get it and burn it."

Gray sighed and leaned back. Fiona wanted whatever revenge she could get. She wanted to hurt them. Gray didn't blame her…but her reckless actions were only likely to get her killed, too.

"The Bible's ours. I should be able to take it back." Her voice cracked. She shook her head and swiped at her nose.

Gray put an arm around her.

She winced but didn't pull away.

In front, the auction began. Paddles rose and fell. Items came and went. The best would be held until last. Gray noted who bought what. He especially noted who were the final bidders for the items logged into his notebook, the three items of special interest: Mendel's genetics papers, Planck's physics, and de Vries's diary on mutations.

They all went to the pair of silent-movie stars.

Their identities remained unknown. Gray heard whispers among his fellow participants. No one knew who they were. Only their ever-rising paddle number.

Number 002.

Gray leaned to Fiona. "Do you recognize those buyers? Have you ever seen them before in your shop?"

Fiona straightened in her seat, stared for a full minute, then slunk down. "No."

"How about anyone else?"

She shrugged.

"Fiona, are you sure?"

"Yes," she snapped. "I'm bloody goddamn sure!"

This earned more exasperated glances in their direction.

At last the auction wound down to the final item. The Darwin Bible was unlocked from its case and carried like a religious relic to an easel that stood under a special halogen spot. It was an unimpressive tome: flaking black leather, tattered and stained, not even any lettering. It could be any old journal.

Fiona sat straighter. Plainly this was what had kept her in her seat this entire time. She grabbed Gray's wrist. "Are you really going to bid on it?" she asked, hope dawning in her bright eyes.

Gray frowned at her—then realized it wasn't a half-bad idea. If the others were willing to kill over it, maybe some clue to the entire house of cards could be discerned from it. Besides, he was aching to get a peek at it. And Sigma Force had poured 250,000 euros into the account here at the auction house. That meant he could bid up to 2.5 million. That was twice the maximum estimate for the Bible. If he won, he'd be able to inspect his purchase.

Still, he remembered Logan Gregory's admonishment. He had already disobeyed orders to follow Fiona here. He dared not involve himself even more intimately.

He felt Fiona's eyes on him.

If he started bidding, it would put their lives in danger, painting a bull's-eye on both of them. And what if he lost the bid? The risk would be for nothing. Hadn't he been foolhardy enough today?

"Ladies and gentlemen, how much to start the bidding on today's last lot?" Ergenschein said grandly. "Shall we open with one hundred thousand? Ah, yes, we have one hundred thousand…and from a new bidder. How wonderful. Number 144."

Gray lowered his paddle, all eyes on him, committed now.

Beside him, Fiona smiled widely.

"And we double the bid," Ergenschein said. "Two hundred thousand from number 002!"

The silent-movie stars.

Gray felt the room's focus shift back to him, including the pair in front. Too late to back down. He raised his paddle again.

The bidding continued for another ten tense minutes. The auction room remained full. Everyone was staying behind to see what the Darwin Bible would fetch. There was an undercurrent of support for Gray. Too many others had been outpaddled by number 002. And as the figure crossed the two million mark, well above the maximum estimate, murmurs of hushed excitement burbled around the room.

There was another flash of excitement when a phone bidder jumped into the fray, but number 002 outbid him, and he didn't counter.

Gray did. Two mill three. Gray's palms began to sweat.

"Two million four from number 002! Gentlemen and ladies, please keep your seats."

Gray raised his paddle one more time.

"Two million five."

Gray knew he was sunk. He could do nothing but watch as 002 rose again, unstoppable, relentless, merciless.

"Three million," the pale young gentleman said, tiring of the game. He stood and glanced back at Gray, as if daring him to challenge that.

Gray had reached his limit. Even if he wanted, he couldn't bet more. His hand ground on his paddle. Gray shook his head, admitting defeat.

The other bowed toward him, one adversary to another. The man tipped an imaginary hat. Gray noted a blue blemish on the fellow's right hand, at the webbing between thumb and forefinger. A tattoo. His companion, who by now

Gray realized must be the young man's sister, perhaps even twin, bore the same mark on her left.

Gray fixed the tattoo in his mind's eye, perhaps a clue to their identity.

His attention was interrupted by the auctioneer.

"And it appears number 144 is finished!" Ergenschein said. "Any more bids. Once, twice, thrice." He raised the gavel, held it for a breathless moment, then tapped it on the edge of the podium. "Done!"

Polite applause met the concluding bid.

Gray knew it would have been more boisterous if he had won. Still, he was surprised to see who was clapping beside him.

Fiona.

She grinned at him. "Let's get out of here."

They joined the flow of people filing out the door. Gray was offered sympathy and condolences from a few of the other participants as he departed. Soon they reached the streets. They all went their separate ways.

Fiona tugged him a few shops down and directed him into a nearby patisserie, a French affair of chintz drapery and wrought-iron cafe tables. The girl picked a spot near a display filled with cream puffs, petits fours, chocolate eclairs, and smerrebred, the ubiquitous Danish open-face sandwich.

She ignored the treats, beaming with a strange glee.

"Why are you so happy?" Gray finally asked. "We lost the bid."

Gray sat facing the window. They would have to watch their backs. Still, he hoped now, with the Bible sold, that perhaps the danger would subside.

"We stuck it to them!" Fiona said. "Drove it to three mill. Brilliant!"

"I don't think money means that much to them."

Fiona pulled the pin on her bun and shook her hair loose. She lost a decade of age in appearance. Amusement continued to shine in her eyes, with an edge of malicious delight.

Gray suddenly felt a sick twist of his stomach.

"Fiona, what have you done?"

She lifted her purse to the table, tilted it toward Gray, and held it open. He leaned forward.

"Oh, God…Fiona…"

A battered leather-bound tome rested in her purse.

A match to the Darwin Bible that had just been sold.

"Is that the real one?" he asked.

"I nicked it right from under that blind wanker in the back room."

"How—?"

"A bit of the old bait and switch. Took me all day to find a Bible the right size and shape. Course I had to tinker with it a bit afterward. But then all it took was lots of tears and shouting, a bit of fumbling…" She shrugged. "And Bob's your uncle, it was done."

"If you already had the Bible, why did you have me bid—?" Realization struck Gray. "You played me."

"To make those bastards shell out three mill for a two-pence fake!"

"They'll discover soon enough that it's not the real book," Gray said, horror rising.

"Yeah, but I plan to be long gone by then."

"Where?"

"Going with you." Fiona snapped the bag closed.

"I don't think so."

"You remember when Mutti told you about the disbanded library? Where the Darwin Bible came from?"

Gray knew what she was talking about. Grette Neal had hinted that someone was reconstructing some old scientist's library. She had been going to let him copy the original bill of sale, but then they'd been attacked, and it was lost to the flames.

Fiona tapped her forehead. "I have the address stored right here." She then held out a hand. "So?"

Frowning, he went to shake it.

She pulled her hand back in distaste. "As if." Extending her arm again, she turned her palm up. "I want to see your real passport, you wanker. You think I can't scope out a fake one when I see it."

He met her gaze. She had stolen his passport earlier. Her look now was uncompromising. Frowning, he finally reached to a concealed pocket of his suit and took out his real passport.

Fiona read it. "Grayson Pierce." She tossed it back on the table. "Nice to meet you…finally"

He retrieved his passport. "So the Bible. Where did it come from?"

"I'll only tell if you take me with you."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't come with me. You're only a child."

"A child with the Darwin Bible."

Gray tired of her blackmail. He could snatch the Bible whenever he wanted to, but the same couldn't be said for her information. "Fiona, this isn't some goddamn game."

Her eyes hardened on him, aging before him. "And you don't think I know that." Her words were deadly cold. "Where were you when they took my Mutti out in bags? Bloody goddamn bagsA"

Gray closed his eyes. She had struck a nerve, but he refused to relent. "Fiona, I'm sorry," he said with a strained voice. "But what you're asking is impossible. I can't take—"

The explosion shook the patisserie like an earthquake. The front glass rattled, dishes crashed. Fiona and Gray stood and went to the window. Smoke billowed across the street, fuming and roiling into the dusky sky. Flames danced and licked upward from the shattered side of a building across the street.

Fiona glanced to Gray. "Let me guess," she said.

"My hotel room," he admitted.

"So much for the head start."

11:47 p.m. HIMALAYAS

Captured by the Germans, Painter rode behind Lisa on a sled pulled by one of the snowmobiles. They had been traveling for almost an hour, cinched in place with plastic straps and bound together. At least their sled was heated.

Still he kept hunched over Lisa, sheltering her as best he could with his body. She leaned back into him. It was all they could manage. Their wrists were bound to stanchions on either side.

Ahead, the assassin rode on the backseat of the towing snowmobile. He faced to the rear, rifle pointing at them, mismatched eyes never wavering. Anna Sporrenberg piloted the vehicle, the leader of this group.

A group of former Nazis.

Or reformed Nazis.

Or whoever the hell they were.

Painter shoved the question aside. He had a more important puzzle to solve at the moment.

Staying alive.

En route, Painter had learned how easily he and Lisa had been discovered hiding in their cave. Through infrared. Against the frigid landscape, their heat signature had been easy to pick up, revealing their hiding place.

The same would make flight across this terrain almost impossible.

He continued his deliberation, mind focused on one goal.

Escape.

For the past hour, the caravan of snowmobiles had trundled through the wintry night. The vehicles were equipped with electric motors, gliding with almost no noise. In silence, the five snowmobiles traversed the maze with practiced ease, gliding along cliff edges, diving down steep valleys, sweeping over bridges of ice.

He did his best to memorize their route. But exhaustion and the complexity of their path confounded him. It didn't help that his skull had begun to pound again. The headaches had returned—as had the disorientation and vertigo. He had to admit that his symptoms were not subsiding. He also had to admit that he was thoroughly lost.

Craning, he stared at the night sky.

Overhead, stars shone coldly.

Perhaps he could fix his position.

As he stared, the pinpoints of light spun in the sky. He tore his gaze away, a stabbing ache behind his eyes.

"Are you all right?" Lisa whispered back at him.

Painter grumbled under his breath, too nauseated to trust speaking.

"The nystagmus again?" she surmised on her own.

A harsh grunt from the assassin silenced any further communication. Painter was grateful. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, waiting for the moment to pass.

Eventually it did.

He opened his eyes as the caravan edged up to a crest of rock and slowed to a stop. Painter searched around. Nothing was here. An icy cliff cracked the crest on the right. Snow began to fall again.

Why had they stopped?

Ahead, the assassin climbed from his seat.

Anna joined him. Turning a shoulder, the hulking man spoke to the woman in German.

Painter strained to hear and caught the assassin's last words.

"—should just kill them."

It was not said with any vehemence, only dread practicality.

Anna frowned. "We need to find out more, Gunther." The woman glanced in Painter's direction. "You know the problems we've been having lately. If he was sent here…if he knows something that can stop it."

Painter was clueless as to what they were talking about, but he allowed them this misconception. Especially if it kept him alive.

The assassin just shook his head. "He's trouble. I can smell it on him." He began to turn away, dismissive, done with the matter.

Anna stopped him with a touch to the man's cheek, tender, grateful…and maybe something more. "Danke, Gunther."

He turned away, but not before Painter noted the flash of pain in the man's eyes. The assassin trudged to the broken cliff face and disappeared through a crack in the wall. A moment later, a cloud of steam puffed out along with a bit of fiery light—then cut off.

A door opening and closing.

Behind him, one of the guards made a derisive noise, grumbling one word under his breath, an insult, heard by only those closest to him.

Leprakonige.

Leper King.

Painter noted the guard had waited until the hulking man named Gunther was out of earshot. He had not dared say it to the man's face. But from the hunch of the assassin's shoulders and gruff manner, Painter suspected he'd heard it before.

Anna mounted the snowmobile. A new armed guard took the assassin's seat, weapon pointing. They headed out again.

The path switchbacked around a spur of rock and down into an even steeper notch in the mountain. The way ahead was a sea of ice fog, obscuring what lay below. A heavy crest of the mountain overhung the misty sea, cupped low like a pair of warming hands.

They descended into the vast fog bank, lights spearing ahead.

In moments, visibility lowered to feet. Stars vanished.

Then suddenly the darkness deepened as they trundled under the shadow of the overhang. But rather than growing colder, the air grew notably warmer. As they descended farther, rocky outcroppings appeared out of the snow. Meltwater trickled around the boulders.

Painter realized there must be a localized pocket of geothermal activity here. Hot springs, while rare and known mostly to the indigenous people, dotted the Himalayas. Created by the intense pressures of the Indian continental plate grinding into Asia, such geothermal hot spots were believed to be the source of the Shangri-La mythology.

As the snow thinned, the caravan was forced to abandon the snowmobiles. Once parked, Painter and Lisa were cut free from their sled, hauled to their feet, and bound at the wrists. He kept close to Lisa. She met his eyes, mirroring his worry.

Where the hell were they?

Encircled by white parkas and rifles, they were led down the rest of the way. Snow turned to wet rock under their boots. Stairs appeared underfoot, cut into the rock, trickling with snowmelt. Ahead, the perpetual fog thinned and shredded.

Within a few steps, a cliff face appeared out of the gloom, sheltered by the shoulder of the mountain. A natural deep grotto. But it was no paradise—only craggy black granite, dripping and sweating.

More hell than Shangri-La.

Lisa stumbled beside him. Painter caught her as best he could with his wrists bound. But he understood her faltering step.

Ahead, out of the mists, appeared a castle.

Or rather ha/fa castle.

As they neared, Painter recognized the shape as a facade, cut crudely into the back of the grotto. Two giant crenellated towers flanked a massive central keep. Lights burned behind thick, glazed windows.

"GranitschloR," Anna announced and led them toward an arched entrance, twice his height, flanked by giant granite knights.

A heavy oak door, studded and strapped in black iron, sealed the entryway. But as the group approached, the door winched up, rising like a portcullis.

Anna strode forward. "Come. It has been a long night, /a?"

Painter and Lisa were led at gunpoint toward the entrance. He studied the facade of battlements, parapets, and arched windows. Across the entire surface, the black granite sweated and trickled, wept and dripped. The water appeared like a run of black oil, as if the castle were dissolving before their eyes, melting back into the rock face.

The fiery illumination from a few of the windows made the castle's surface shine with a hellish glow, reminding him of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. The fifteenth-century artist had specialized in twisted depictions of hell. If ever Bosch had sculpted the gates to the Underworld, this castle would be it.

With no choice, Painter followed Anna and passed under the arched entrance of the castle. He looked up, searching for the words Dante had said were supposedly carved upon the gates to the Underworld.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

The words weren't here—but they might as well have been.

All hope abandon…

That about summed it up.

8:15 p.m.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

As the hotel explosion echoed away, Gray grabbed Fiona by the arm and rushed her out a side door of the French bakery. He aimed for a neighboring alley, pushing through the patrons gathered on the sidewalk patio.

Sirens erupted in the distance.

It seemed Copenhagen's firefighters were putting in a long day today.

Gray reached the corner of the alley, away from the smoke and chaos, Fiona in tow. A brick cracked near his ear, followed by a ricocheted ping. A gunshot. Spinning, he whipped Fiona into the alleyway and ducked low. He searched the street for the shooter.

And found her.

Close.

A half block back, across the street.

It was the white-blond woman from the auction. Only now she wore a black, tight-fitting running suit. She had also gained a new fashion accessory. A pistol with a silencer. She held it low by her knee, striding quickly toward his location. She touched her ear, lips moving.

Radio.

As the woman stepped under a streetlamp, Gray realized his mistake. It wasn't the same woman from the auction. Her hair was longer. Her face more gaunt.

An older sibling to the pair.

Gray swung away.

He expected Fiona to be halfway down the alley. She was only five yards back, straddling a rust-scarred lime green Vespa scooter.

"What are you—?"

"Getting us a ride." She had her purse open and dropped a screwdriver back into it.

Gray hurried to her side. "There's no time to hot-wire it."

Fiona glanced over a shoulder at him, while her fingers blindly fiddled with a nest of ignition wires. She twisted two, and the engine coughed, whined, and caught.

Damn…

She was good—but there were limits to trust.

Gray waved her back. "I'll drive."

Fiona shrugged and slid onto the backseat. Gray mounted the bike, rolled it off its kickstand, and gunned the engine. Keeping the headlamp off, he took off down the dark alley. Or rather puttered.

"C'mon," he urged.

"Pop it into second," Fiona said. "Skip past third. You have to goose the crap out of these old ones."

"I don't need a backseat driver."

Still, Gray obeyed, popping the clutch and shifting. The scooter jumped like a startled filly. They sped faster down the alley, zigzagging around stacks of trashcans.

Sirens screamed behind them. Gray glanced back. A fire engine roared past the entrance to the alley, lights blazing, responding to the explosion. Before Gray turned back around, a dark figure strode into view, limned against the brighter streetlights.

The shooter.

He eked out a bit more power, swerving around a tall construction bin, putting it between him and the woman. If he stuck to the wall, he had a straight shot out of the alley from here.

At the other end, the far street glowed like a beacon.

It was their only chance.

Focused forward, he watched a second dark figure step into view and stop. A passing car's headlights turned his blond hair silver. Yet another sibling. The man wore a long black duster. He parted the trench coat and raised a shotgun.

The woman must have radioed him, setting up this ambush.

"Hold tight!" Gray called.

As the man lifted the gun one-armed, Gray noted the sling around his other arm, bandaged from wrist to elbow. Though his face was in shadows, Gray knew who blocked their escape.

It was the man who had murdered Grette Neal.

He still bore Bertal's bite wounds, bandaged now.

The shotgun pointed at Gray.

No time.

Gray twisted the scooter's handles and sent the bike into a smoking skid, tilted sideways, aiming for the man.

The shotgun exploded with a muffled blast, accompanied by a splintering crash as a fist of pellets struck a neighboring doorway.

Fiona yelped in fright.

But that was the man's only shot. He dove out of the way of the sliding bike. Once clear of the dark alley, Gray swung the bike out of its skid with a kick of the throttle and a scream of rubber on cement. He manhandled the scooter up and into traffic, earning a savage blast of a horn from a disgruntled Audi driver.

Gray headed away.

Fiona loosened her grip.

Gray maneuvered around the slower cars, gaining speed as the road sloped steeply downward. At the bottom, the avenue dead-ended into a tree-lined cross street. Gray braked for the sharp turn. The bike refused to obey. He glanced down. A cable bounced alongside the scooter's back tire.

The brake cable.

His skid-out must have dislodged it.

"Slow down!" Fiona yelled in his ear.

"Brake's out!" he called back. "Hang on!"

Gray choked out the engine, then fought to lose the bike's momentum by swerving and skidding, like a downhill skier. He dragged the rear tire alongside one curb, rubber smoking.

They reached the corner, going too fast.

Gray slewed the scooter on its side, metal scraping up fiery sparks. The bike slid across the intersection, passing in front of a flat-paneled truck. Horns blared. Brakes squealed.

Then they hit the far curb.

The bike flipped. Gray and Fiona flew.

A hedgerow broke the worst of their collision, but they still ended up rolling across the sidewalk and landing at the foot of a brick wall. Gaining his feet, Gray moved to Fiona's side.

"Are you all right?"

She stood up, more angry than hurt. "I paid two hundred euros for this skirt." Her dress had a long rip up one side. She clutched it closed with one hand and bent down to retrieve her purse.

Gray's Armani suit fared even worse. One knee was ripped out, and the right side of his jacket looked like it had been scoured with a wire brush. But besides a few scrapes and abrasions, they were unharmed.

Traffic flowed past the site of their accident.

Fiona headed away. "Vespas crash around here all the time. And they're stolen just as often. Ownership of a scooter in Copenhagen is a general term. Need one? Grab one. Leave it behind for the next guy. No one really cares."

But somebody did.

A fresh squeal of tires drew their attention. A black sedan swung into the street two blocks back. It sped in their direction. It was too dark to identify the driver or passengers. Headlights speared toward them.

Gray hurried Fiona along the tree-lined sidewalk, seeking the deeper shadows. A tall brick wall framed this side of the street. No buildings, no alleys. Just a stretch of high wall. From beyond rose a merry twinkle of flutes and strings.

Behind them, the sedan slowed beside the crashed Vespa, searching.

No question their escape by scooter had been reported.

"Over here," Fiona said.

Hooking her purse over a shoulder, she led him to a shadowy park bench and climbed on it—then using the seat back as a boost, she leaped up and grabbed one of the tree limbs overhead. She kicked up, hooking her legs over the branch.

"What are you doing?"

"Street kids do this all the time. Free admission."

"What?"

"C'mon."

Hand over hand, she followed the thick branch as it angled over the brick wall. She dropped on the far side and vanished.

Damn it.

The sedan began to drift up the street again.

With no choice, Gray followed Fiona's example. He mounted the bench and jumped up. Music wafted over the wall, scintillating and magical in the dark night. Once hanging upside down, he craned over the wall.

Beyond lay a wonderland of glowing lanterns, miniature palaces, and twirling amusements.

Tivoli Gardens.

The turn-of-the-century amusement park lay nestled in the heart of Copenhagen. From this height, Gray spotted the park's central lake. Its mirrored surface reflected thousands of lanterns and lights. Spreading outward, flower-lined paths led to lamplit pavilions, wooden roller coasters, carousels, and Ferris wheels. The old park was less a technocratic Disney and more an intimate neighborhood park.

Gray scuttled along the limb toward the park, passing over the wall.

On the far side, Fiona waited below and waved to him. She stood at the back of a utility or gardening shed.

Gray dropped his legs and dangled by his arms.

A chunk of bark exploded by his right hand. Shocked, he let go and fell, his arms cartwheeling for balance. He landed hard in a flower bed, jamming a knee, but the soft loam cushioned his fall. Beyond the wall, an engine growled, and a door slammed.

They'd been spotted.

Grimacing, Gray joined Fiona. Her eyes were wide. She had heard the shot. Without a word, they fled together toward the heart of Tivoli Gardens.

6 UGLY DUCKLING

1:22 a.m. HIMALAYAS

Well past midnight, Lisa soaked in a steaming bath of naturally heated mineral waters. She could close her eyes and imagine herself in some expensive European spa. The room's accoutrements were certainly plush enough: thick Egyptian cotton towels and robes, a massive four-poster bed piled high with a nest of blankets on a foot-thick goose-down featherbed. Medieval tapestries hung on the walls, and underfoot, Turkish rugs covered the stone floors.

Painter was in the outer room, stoking their tiny fireplace.

They shared this pleasant little prison cell.

Painter had told Anna Sporrenberg that they were companions back in the States. A ruse intended to keep them from being separated.

Lisa hadn't argued against it.

She had not wanted to be alone here.

Though the water's temperature was only a few degrees lower than parboil, Lisa shivered. As a doctor, she recognized her own signs of shock as the adrenaline that had been sustaining her up to this point wore off. She remembered how earlier she had lashed out against the German woman, almost attacked her. What had she been thinking? She could've gotten them both shot.

And all that time, Painter had been so calm. Even now, she drew strength hearing Painter roll another log onto the fire, simple bits of caretaking and comfort. He must be exhausted. The man had already soaked in the massive tub, not so much for hygiene as a prescription against frostbite. Lisa had noted the white patches on the tips of his ears and insisted he go first.

More warmly dressed, she had fared better.

Still, she immersed herself fully into the tub, dunking her head under, her hair willowing out. The heat suffused through her, warming all her tissues. Her senses stretched. All she had to do was inhale, allow herself to drown. A moment of panic, and it would be over. All the fear, all the tension. She would be in control of her own fate—taking back what her captors held hostage.

Just a breath…

"Are you almost finished with your bath?" The muffled words reached her through the water, sounding far away. "They've brought us a late-night snack."

Lisa shifted, surfacing out of the steam, water sluicing from her hair and face. "I…I'll be out in another minute."

"Take your time," Painter called from the main room.

She heard him roll another log onto the fire.

How could he still be moving? Bedridden for three days, the fight in the root cellar, the frozen trek here…yet he still kept forging on. It gave her hope. Maybe it was just desperation, but she sensed a well of strength in him that went beyond the physical.

As she thought about him, her trembling finally slowed.

She climbed out of the bath, skin steaming, and toweled off. A thick robe hung from a hook. She left it hanging for a moment more. A floor-length mirror stood beside an antique washbasin. Its surface was misty, but her naked form was visible. She turned her leg, not in some narcissistic admiration, but to study the map of bruises down her limb. The deep ache in her calves reminded her of something essential.

She was still alive.

She glanced to the tub.

She would not give them the satisfaction. She would see it through.

She climbed into her robe. After snugging it tight around her waist, she lifted the heavy iron latch to the bathroom and opened the door. It was warmer in the next room. A steam register had kept the chamber livable, but the new fire in the hearth had stoked the room to a welcoming warmth. The tiny blaze snapped and crackled merrily, casting the room in a rich, flickering glow. A grouping of candles beside the bed added to the homey ambience, the only other illumination.

There was no electricity in the room.

While imprisoning them here, Anna Sporrenberg had explained proudly how most of their power was geothermally generated, based on a hundred-year-old design of Rudolf Diesel, the French-born German engineer who would go on to invent the diesel engine. Even still, electricity was not to be wasted and had been limited to select areas of the castle.

Not here.

Painter turned to her as she entered. She noted how disheveled his hair had dried, giving him a rakish, boyish appearance. Barefooted and in a matching robe, he filled a pair of stone mugs with a steaming brew.

"Jasmine tea," he said and waved her to a small sofa in front of the fire.

A platter rested on a low table: hard cheeses, a loaf of dark bread, piled slices of roast beef, mustard, and a bowl of blackberries with a tiny decanter of cream.

"Our last meal?" Lisa asked, trying to sound flippant, but she couldn't carry it off. They were to be interrogated first thing in the morning.

Painter patted the seat next to him as he sat down.

She joined him.

As he sliced the bread, she picked up a sliver of sharp cheddar. She sniffed and set it down. No appetite.

"You should eat," Painter said.

"Why? So I'll be stronger when they drug us?"

Painter rolled a piece of beef and popped it into his mouth. He chewed as he spoke. "Nothing's certain. If I've learned nothing in life, I've at least learned that."

Unconvinced, she shook her head. "So what are you saying? Just hope for the best?"

"I personally prefer a plan."

She eyed him. "And you have one?"

"A simple one. Not exactly guns-blazing, grenades-exploding."

"Then what?"

He swallowed his roast beef and turned to her. "Something that I find works a surprising amount of the time."

She waited for an answer. "Well?"

"Honesty."

She slunk back, shoulders slumping. "Great."

Painter picked up a slice of bread, slathered it with some coarse mustard, added a slice of beef, and topped it with a piece of cheddar. He held it out toward her. "Eat."

Sighing, she took his creation in hand, only to appease him.

Painter made a second one for himself. "For instance, I'm the director for a division of DARPA named Sigma. We specialize in investigating threats to the U.S., employing a team of ex-Special Forces soldiers. The strong arm for DARPA out in the field."

Lisa nibbled at the edge of the sandwich's crust, catching a tangy bit of fresh mustard. "Can we expect some rescue by these soldiers?"

"Doubtful. Not in the time frame we have. It will take them days to discover that my body's not among the ruins of the monastery."

"Then I don't see—"

Painter held up a hand, munched a mouthful of sandwich, and mumbled around it. "It's about honesty. Putting it out there, plainly and openly. Seeing what happens. Something drew Sigma's attention out here. Reports of strange illnesses. After operating so covertly for so many years, why all these slips in the past months? I'm not one to place much stock in coincidence. I overheard Anna speaking to the soldier-assassin. She hinted at some problem here. Something that has them baffled. I think our two goals might not be at such cross-purposes. There may be room for cooperation."

"And they'd let us live?" she asked, half scoffing, but a part of her hoped. She bit into the sandwich to hide her foolishness.

"I don't know," he said, staying honest. "As long as we prove useful. But if we can gain a few days…it widens our chances for a rescue or maybe a change of circumstance."

Lisa chewed her food, contemplating. Before she knew it, her fingers were empty. And she was still hungry. They shared the bowl of blackberries, pouring cream over them.

She eyed Painter with a fresh perspective. He was more than stubborn strength. There was a brilliance behind those blue eyes and a wealth of common sense. As if sensing her scrutiny, he glanced at her. She quickly returned to studying the platter of food.

In silence, they finished their meal, sipping the tea. With food in their bellies, exhaustion weighed on them both, making even talk a burden. Also she enjoyed the quiet, sitting next to him. She heard him breathing. She could smell his freshly scrubbed skin.

As she finished the last of her honeyed tea, she noted Painter rubbing at his right temple, one eye squinted. His headache was flaring up. She didn't want to play doctor, go clinical and worry him, but she studied him askance. The fingers of his other hand trembled. She noted the slight vibration in his pupils as he stared at the dying fire.

Painter had mentioned honesty, but did he want the truth about his condition? The attacks seemed to be coming on more frequently. And a part of her was selfish enough to fear—not for his health, but for the thin hope of survival he had instilled in her. She needed him.

Lisa stood. "We should get some sleep. Dawn cannot be far off."

Painter groaned but nodded. He stood. She had to grab his elbow as he teetered a bit.

"I'm fine," he said.

So much for honesty.

She guided him toward the bed and pulled back the blankets.

"I can sleep on the sofa," he said, resisting.

"Don't be ridiculous. Get in. Now's not the time to be concerned with any impropriety. We're in a Nazi stronghold."

"Former Nazi."

"Yeah, big comfort there."

Still, he climbed into the bed with a sigh, robe and all. Walking around the bed, she did the same, blowing out the bedside candles. The shadows thickened, but the dying firelight kept the room pleasantly aglow. Lisa didn't know if she could handle the total darkness.

She settled under the blankets, pulling them up to her chin. She kept a space between the two of them, back to Painter. He must have sensed her fear and rolled to face her.

"If we die," Painter mumbled, "we'll die together."

She swallowed. Those were not the reassuring words she had expected to hear, but at the same time she was oddly comforted. Something in his tone, the honesty, the promise behind the words, succeeded where weak assertions of their safety would have failed.

She believed him.

Snuggling closer, her hand found his, fingers entwined, nothing sexual, just two people needing to touch. She pulled his arm around her.

He squeezed her hand, reassuring and strong.

She pulled deeper against him, and he rolled to hold her more snugly.

Lisa closed her eyes, not expecting to sleep.

But in his arms, she eventually did.

10:39 p.m.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Gray checked his watch.

They'd been hiding for over two hours. He and Fiona had holed themselves up inside a service shaft for a ride called the Minen, or Mine. It was an old-fashioned animatronic amusement where cars rolled past cartoonish molelike animals in mining gear, working some whimsical subterranean quarry. The same musical refrain kept playing over and over again, an aural form of the Chinese water torture.

Shortly after disappearing into the crowds of Tivoli Gardens, Gray and Fiona had hopped on the old ride, playing father and daughter. But at the first unsupervised turn, they rolled out of their car and into a service cubby behind a swinging door with an electrical hazard sign on it. Never finishing the ride, Gray could only imagine the end: the molelike creatures merrily ensconced in hospital beds, suffering from black-lung disease.

Or so he hoped.

The jaunty refrain in Dutch continued for the thousandth time. Maybe it wasn't as bad as the It's-a-Small-World ride at Disneyland, but it was a close second.

In the cramped quarters, Gray had the Darwin Bible open in his lap. He had been perusing the pages with a penlight, searching for any clue to its importance, page by page. His head throbbed in tune to the music.

"Do you have a gun?" Fiona asked, crunched in a corner, arms crossed. "If you do, shoot me now."

Gray sighed. "We only have another hour."

"I'll never make it."

The plan was to wait for the park to close. The park only had one official exit, but Gray was sure all exits were under surveillance by now. Their only chance was to try to escape during the park's mass exodus at midnight. He had tried to confirm Monk's arrival at the Copenhagen airport, but the iron and copper in the old building were playing havoc with his cell phone reception. They needed to reach the airport.

"Have you learned anything from the Bible?" she asked.

Gray shook his head. It was fascinating to see the house lineage graphed inside the front cover, the Darwin family's personal evolutionary tree. But otherwise, of the remaining pages he'd perused so far, the brittle and fragile sheets offered no clues. All he discovered were a few scribblings. The same mark over and over, in many different positions and incarnations.

Gray glanced at his notebook. He had jotted down the symbols as they appeared, written in the margins of the Bible—whether by the hand of Charles Darwin or a later owner, he didn't know.

He nudged his notebook toward Fiona.

"Anything look familiar?"

Fiona sighed and leaned forward, uncrossing her arms. She squinted at the symbols.

"Bird scratches," she said. "Nothing worth murdering over."

Gray rolled his eyes, but he held his tongue. Fiona's mood had darkened. He preferred her vengeful amusement and manic anger. With their incarceration here, she seemed to have drawn inward. Gray suspected she had driven all her grief and energy into the ruse to obtain the Bible, her small act of revenge against her grandmother's murder. And now, in the dark, the reality was setting in.

What could he do?

Picking up pen and paper, he sought some means to keep her focused on the present. He drew another symbol, the small tattoo on the back of the male bidder's hand.

He slid it over. "How about this one?"

With an even louder, more dramatic sigh, she again leaned forward to stare. She shook her head. "A four-leaf clover. I don't know. What's that supposed to…wait…" She took the notebook and looked closer. Her eyes widened. "I've seen this before!"

"Where?"

"On a business card," Fiona said. "Only it wasn't like this, more of an outline." She took up his pen and began to work.

"Whose business card?"

"The prat who came months ago and searched through our records. The guy who stiffed us with the fake credit card." Fiona continued to work. "Where did you see it?"

"It was drawn on the back of the man's hand, the one who bought the Bible."

Fiona practically growled. "I knew it! So it's been the same bastard behind this all along. First he tries to steal it. Then he tries to cover his tracks by killing Mutti and burning down the shop."

"Do you remember the name on the business card?" Gray asked.

She shook her head. "Only the symbol. Because I recognized it."

She slid her drawing over to him. It was a more detailed line-drawing of the solid tattoo, revealing more of a tangled nature to the symbol.

9B?

Gray tapped the page. "You recognized this?"

Fiona nodded. "I collect pins. Course I couldn't wear them with these naff clothes."

Gray remembered her hooded jacket, the one he had first spotted her wearing, festooned with buttons of every shape and size.

"I went through a Celtic phase," Fiona said. "It was the only music I'd listen to, and most of my pins had Celtic designs."

"And the symbol here?"

"Called an Earth Square or Saint Hans Cross. It's supposed to be protective, calling on the four corners of the earth for power." She tapped the cloverleaf circles. "That's why it's sometimes called a shield knot. Meant to protect you."

Gray concentrated but found no significance to the clue.

"It's why I told Mutti to trust him," Fiona said. She had sunk back. Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if afraid to talk. "She didn't like the man. On first sight. But when I saw that on his card, I thought he must be an okay bloke."

"You couldn't have known."

"Mutti did," she said sharply. "And now she's dead. Because of me." Guilt and anguish rang through her words.

"Nonsense." Gray moved closer and put his arm around her. "Whoever these people are, they were damned determined from the start. You know that. They would have found a way to get that information from your shop. They wouldn't have taken no for an answer. If you hadn't convinced your grandmother to let them look through the records, they might have killed you both on the spot."

Fiona leaned against him.

"Your grandmother—"

"She wasn't my grandmother," she interrupted hollowly.

Gray had figured as much, but he stayed silent, letting Fiona speak.

"She caught me when I tried to nick some stuff from her store. Two years ago. But she didn't call the police. Instead she made me soup. Chicken barley."

Gray didn't need to see in the dark to know Fiona had smiled slightly.

"That was the way she was. Always helping street kids. Always taking in strays."

"Like Bertal."

"And me." She stayed silent for a long moment. "My parents died in a car accident. They were Pakistani immigrants. Punjabis. We had a small house in Waltham Forest in London, even a garden. We talked about getting a dog. Then…then they died."

"I'm sorry, Fiona."

"My aunt and uncle took me in…they had just arrived from the Punjab." Another long pause. "After a month, he started coming into my room at night."

Gray closed his eyes. Dear God…

"So I ran…I lived on the streets of London for a couple years, but I got in trouble with the wrong people. Had to run. So I left England and backpacked across Europe. Getting by. I ended up here."

"And Grette took you in."

"And now she's dead, too." Again that ring of guilt. "Maybe I'm just bad luck."

Gray pulled Fiona tighter. "I saw the way she looked at you. You coming into her life was not bad luck. She loved you."

"I…I know." Fiona turned her face away. Her shoulders shook as she quietly sobbed.

Gray just held her. She eventually turned and buried her face in his shoulder. Now it was Gray's turn to fight twinges of guilt. Grette had been such a generous woman, nurturing and instinctive, kind and empathetic. Now she was dead. He had his own culpability to balance here. If he had proceeded with more caution…been less reckless with this investigation…

And the cost for his neglect.

Fiona's sobbing continued.

Even if the murder and arson had been planned regardless of his own blundering inquiries, Gray judged his actions afterward. He had fled, abandoning Fiona to the chaos, leaving her to her grief. He remembered her calling out to him—at first angered, then pleading.

He hadn't stopped.

"I have no one now," Fiona cried softly into his suit.

"You have me."

She pulled back, teary-eyed. "But you're leaving, too."

"And you're coming with me."

"But you said—"

"Never mind what I said." Gray knew the girl was no longer safe here. She would be eliminated, if not to gain the Bible, then to shut her up. She knew too much. Like…"You mentioned you knew the address from the Bible's bill of sale."

Fiona stared at him with open suspicion. Her sobbing had stopped. She pulled back and eyed him, judging if his sympathy was a ruse to get her to cough up what she knew. He understood her wariness now, born of the streets.

Gray knew better than to push it. "I have a friend flying in on a private jet. He should be touching down at midnight. We can connect with him and fly anywhere. You can tell me where we have to go once we're on board." Gray held out a hand, prepared to seal the deal.

With one eye squinted in suspicion, Fiona took his hand.

"Deal," she said.

It was a small patch on Gray's mistakes of the past day, but it was a start. She had to be removed from harm's way, and she should be safe once on board the plane. She could stay aboard, under guard, while he and Monk investigated further.

Fiona pushed his notebook back toward him with all the doodled symbols. "Just so you know…we need to go to Paderborn in Central Germany. I'll give you the specific address once we're there."

Gray took her concession as a tiny measure of trust. "Good enough."

She nodded.

The deal clinched.

"Now if only you could get this gormless music to stop," she added with a tired moan.

As if on cue, the incessant chant died. The constant low machinery hum and clacking of the cars over tracks also ceased. In the sudden quiet, footsteps sounded outside the narrow door.

Gray gained his feet. "Stay behind me," he hissed.

Fiona gathered up the Bible and tucked it into her purse. Gray grabbed a length of rebar he had found earlier.

The door opened and a bright light shone in their eyes.

The man barked sharply, startled. He spoke in Danish. "What are you two doing in here?"

Gray straightened and lowered the bar. He had almost speared the man in the maintenance uniform.

"Ride is closed," the man said, stepping aside. "Get out of here before I call security."

Gray obeyed. The man scowled at him as he passed. He knew how it must look. An older man with a teenaged girl holed up in a cubby of an amusement park.

"You all right, miss?" the worker asked. He must have noticed her puffy eyes, ripped clothes.

"We're fine." She hooked her arm into Gray's and sashayed her hips a bit. "He paid extra for this ride."

The man frowned in distaste. "Back door is over there." He pointed to a neon exit sign. "Don't let me catch you in here again. It's dangerous to be traipsing around back here."

Not as dangerous as outside. Gray led them to the door and pushed through. He checked his watch. It was only a bit after eleven. The park wouldn't close for another hour. Maybe they needed to try for an exit now.

As they cleared the corner of the ride's building, it looked like this section of the park was deserted. No wonder the ride had closed up early.

Gray heard music and merriment coming from the direction of the park's lake.

"Everyone's gathering for the electrical parade," Fiona said. "It closes up the park, along with fireworks."

Gray prayed tonight's fireworks didn't end up with people bleeding and screaming. He searched the immediate park grounds. Lanterns lit up the night. Tulips filled beds to overflowing. The concrete paths and aprons here were sparsely populated. They were too exposed.

Gray spotted a pair of park security guards, a man and a woman, striding a bit too purposefully in their direction. Had the maintenance worker gone ahead and alerted security after all?

"Time to get lost again," Gray said and tugged Fiona in the opposite direction of the approaching guards. He headed toward where the crowds gathered. They walked quickly, staying in shadows under trees. Just two visitors anxious to watch the parade.

They cleared the garden paths and entered the central plaza with its wide lake, aglow from all the lights and lanterns of the encircling pavilions and palaces. Across the way, a cheer arose as the first of the parade floats drifted into the plaza. It stood three stories, depicting a mermaid on a rock, emblazoned with emerald and azure blue lights. An arm waved in welcome. Other floats swept behind it, aglow with animated puppets, five meters tall. Flutes piped merrily, drums sounded.

"The Hans Christian Andersen parade," Fiona said. "Celebrating the writer's two hundredth anniversary. He's the patron saint of the city."

Gray marched with her toward the crowd lining the parade route around the center lake. Reflected in the still waters, a giant fiery bloom burst in the sky, accompanied by a sonorous whump. Fanciful cascades of sparkling streamers whistled and spiraled out across the night sky.

Nearing the edge of the surging parade crowd, Gray kept a constant vigil around him. He searched for any pale figure in black. But this was Copenhagen. Every fifth person was blond. And black, it seemed, was the new black this season in Denmark.

Gray's heart thumped in beat to the drums. A short volley of fireworks pummeled his chest and eardrums with their concussions. But they finally reached the crowds.

Directly overhead, another flaming flower, drizzling with fire, crackled and burst.

Fiona stumbled.

Gray caught her, his ears ringing.

As the explosion echoed away, Fiona stared up at him, shocked. She lifted a hand from her side. She held it out toward him as he pulled her into the crowd.

Her palm was covered in blood.

4:02 a.m. HIMALAYAS

Painter woke into darkness, the fire cold. How long had he been asleep? Without windows, it was timeless. But he sensed not much time had passed.

Something had roused him.

He pushed up on an elbow.

On the other side of the bed, Lisa was also awake, glancing toward the door. "Did you feel—?"

The room shuddered with a violent shake. A distant boom reached them, felt in the gut.

Painter threw back the blankets. "Trouble."

He pointed to the pile of fresh clothes supplied by their hosts. They quickly dressed: long underwear, heavy worn jeans, and bulky sweaters.

Across the room, Lisa lit the bedside candles. She shoved her feet into a pair of sturdy leather boots meant more for men. They waited in silence for a span of time…maybe twenty minutes, listening to the commotion slowly die down.

Both sank back to the bed.

"What do you think happened?" Lisa whispered.

Barked shouts echoed.

"Don't know…but I think we're about to find out."

Boots pounded down the stone passage beyond the thick oak door. Painter stood, craning an ear.

"Coming this way," he said.

Confirming this, a hard knock rattled the door. Holding up an arm, Painter held Lisa back, but he also took a step back himself. A heavy scrape sounded next, releasing the iron bar that sealed them inside.

The door was tugged open. Four men streamed into the room, rifles pointing at them. A fifth entered. He looked a lot like the assassin named Gunther. A giant bull of a man, thick necked, a stubble field for hair, silver or light gray. He wore baggy brown pants tucked into midthigh black boots and a matching brown shirt.

Except for the missing black armband and swastika, he looked the part of a Nazi storm trooper.

Or rather former Nazi storm trooper.

He also had the same pale face as Gunther, only something seemed wrong. The left side of his face drooped like a stroke victim. His left arm trembled with a palsy as he pointed toward the door.

"Kommen mit mirf'he snapped.

They were being ordered out. The massive leader turned and strode away, as if any thought of disobeying was simply unfathomable. Then again, the rifles at their back certainly reinforced that assumption.

Painter nodded to Lisa. She joined him as they exited, trailed by the cadre of guards. The hallway was narrow, hewn from the rock, barely wide enough for two people. The only illumination came from flashlights secured to the guards' rifles, jittering shadows ahead of them. It was distinctly colder in the hallway than their room, but far from frigid.

They were not led far. Painter estimated that they were headed toward the front facade of the castle. He was right. He even heard a distant whistle of wind. The storm must have kicked up again outside.

Ahead, the massive guardsman knocked on a carved wooden door. A muffled response encouraged him to open the door. Warm light flowed out into the hall, along with a breath of heat.

The guard stepped through and held the door.

Painter led Lisa into the room and searched around him. It appeared to be a rustic study and library. It climbed two stories, all four walls covered in open bookshelves. The upper level was circled by an iron balcony, heavy and undecorated. The only way up was via a steep ladder.

The source of the room's heat was a large stone hearth, aglow with a small bonfire. An oil painting of a man in a German uniform glared down at them.

"My grandfather," Anna Sporrenberg said, noting Painter's attention. She rose from behind a carved monstrosity of a desk. She wore dark jeans and a sweater, too. Apparently it was the dress code for the castle. "He took over the castle after the war."

She motioned them to a circle of wingback chairs that fronted the fireplace. Painter noted the circles under her eyes. It looked like she hadn't slept at all. He also smelled smoke on her, an odor not unlike cordite.

Interesting.

Painter met her eyes as she approached the heavy chairs. The small hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Despite her exhaustion, her eyes were bright and sharp. Painter recognized a cunning, predatory, and calculating gleam. Here was someone to watch closely. She seemed to be appraising him just as intently, sizing him up.

What was going on?

"Setzen Sie, bitte,"she said, nodding to the chairs.

Painter and Lisa took neighboring chairs. Anna chose one opposite them. The guard kept a post by the closed door, arms crossed. Painter knew the cadre of other guards still waited outside. He surveyed the room for escape routes. The only other exit was a deep-set glazed window, frosted to obscurity, crisscrossed with iron bars.

No escape that way.

Painter returned his attention to Anna. Maybe there was another way out. Anna's manner was cautious, but they had been called here for a reason. He needed as much information as possible, but he would have to handle this deftly. He noted Anna's family resemblance to the man in the oil painting. A place to start.

"You said your grandfather took over the castle," Painter said, prying for answers, sticking to safe ground. "Who held it before him?"

Anna leaned back into the seat, obviously relieved to sit in front of the fire for a quiet moment. Still, her manner was focused, hands folded on her lap, eyes passing over Lisa, then back to him. "GranitschloR has a long and dark history, Mr. Crowe. Are you familiar with Heinrich Himmler?"

"Hitler's second in command?"

"Ja. The head of the SS. Also a butcher and madman."

Painter was surprised to hear this characterization. Was this a trick? He sensed a game afoot. Only he didn't know the steps…at least not yet.

Anna continued, "Himmler believed himself to be the reincarnation of King Heinrich, a tenth-century German king of the Saxons. Even thought he received psychic messages from him."

Painter nodded. "I've heard he was interested in the occult."

"Obsessed actually." Anna shrugged. "It was a passion of many in Germany. Going back to Madame Blavatsky, who coined the term Aryan. She claimed to have gained secret knowledge while studying at a Buddhist monastery. Secret masters supposedly taught her how mankind had devolved from a superior race and would one day evolve back."

"The proverbial master race," Painter said.

"Precisely. A century later, Guido von List mixed her beliefs with German mythology, refining a Nordic origin to this mythic Aryan race."

"And the German people bought the story hook, line, and sinker," Painter said, baiting her a bit.

"And why not? After our defeat in World War I, such an idea was a flattering conceit. It was taken up in a flourish of occult lodges in Germany. The Thule Society, the Vril Society, the Order of the New Templars."

"And as I recall, Himmler himself belonged to the Thule Society."

"Yes, the Reichsführer believed fully in this mythology. Even in the magic of the Nordic runes. It was why he chose the double sig runes, twin lightning bolts, to represent his own order of warrior-priests, the Schutzstaffel, the SS. He became convinced, from studying Madame Blavatsky's work, that it was in the Himalayas that the Aryan race first arose, and that it was here that it would rise again."

Lisa spoke for the first time. "So Himmler did send expeditions out into the Himalayas." She shared a glance with Painter. They had talked about this earlier. So they weren't so far off base. But Painter still wondered about Anna's cryptic statement.

We're not Nazis. Not anymore.

He encouraged the woman to talk while she remained gregarious. He sensed a setup, but he had no idea where it was leading. He hated being in the dark, but he refused to show it.

"So what was Himmler searching for out here?" he asked. "Some lost tribe of Aryans? A white-supremacist's Shangri-La?"

"Not exactly. Under the guise of anthropological and zoological research, Himmler sent members of his SS to search for evidence of a long-lost master race. He became convinced that he would find traces of the old race here. And though he found nothing, he grew more determined, driven further into madness. When he started constructing an SS stronghold in Germany, a personal castle named Wewelsburg, he built a mirror image of the same here, airlifting a thousand slave laborers from German concentration camps. He also shipped a metric ton of gold bullion. To make us self-sufficient. Which it has, with careful investments."

"But why build here?" Lisa asked.

Painter could guess. "He believed that the Aryan race would again rise from these mountains. He was building their first citadel."

Anna nodded, as if conceding a point in a match. "He also believed the hidden masters who once taught Madame Blavatsky were still alive. He was building them a stronghold, a central place to bring all such knowledge and experience together."

"Did these hidden masters ever show up?" Painter asked mockingly.

"No. But my grandfather did at the end of the war. And he brought with him something miraculous, something that could make Himmler's dream a reality."

"And what was that?" Painter asked.

Anna shook her head. "Before we talk further, I must ask you a question. And I would appreciate a truthful answer."

Painter frowned at the sudden change of tack. "You know I can't promise that."

Anna smiled for the first time. "I appreciate even that much honesty, Mr. Crowe."

"So what's your question?" he asked, curious. Here must be the heart of the matter.

Anna stared at him. "Are you ill? I'm having a hard time telling. You seem very clear-headed."

Painter's eyes widened. He had not expected that question.

Before he could respond, Lisa answered, "Yes."

"Lisa…" Painter warned.

"She'll know anyway. It doesn't take a medical degree to tell." Lisa turned to Anna. "He's showing vestibular signs, nystagmus, and disorientation."

"How about migraines with visual flashes?"

Lisa nodded.

"I thought as much." She leaned back. The information seemed to reassure the woman.

Painter frowned. Why?

Lisa pressed. "What is affecting him? I think we…he has a right to know."

"That will take some further discussion, but I can give you his prognosis."

"And that is?"

"He will die in another three days. Most horribly."

Painter forced himself not to react.

Lisa remained equally unfazed, her tone clinical. "Is there a cure?"

Anna glanced to Painter, then back to Lisa.

"No."

11:18 p.m. COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

He had to get the girl to safety, to a doctor. Gray felt the blood seeping from Fiona's gunshot wound, soaking through her shirt as he supported her, an arm under her.

Around them, the crowds pressed. Cameras flashed, keeping Gray edgy. Music and song echoed off the lake as the electrical parade floated past. Giant animated puppets loomed high, nodding and lolling over the heads of the crowd.

Fireworks continued to boom and burst over the lake.

Gray ignored it all. He kept low, still searching for the sniper who shot Fiona.

He had glanced briefly at her wound. Only a graze, skin burned, weeping blood, but she needed medical care. Pain blanched her face.

The shot had come from behind. That meant that the sniper had to be positioned among the trees and bushes. They had been lucky to reach the crowds. Still, with them spotted, the hunters were probably already converging. Surely there were some among the crowd already.

He checked his watch. Forty-five minutes until the park closed.

Gray needed a plan…a new plan. They could no longer wait until midnight to make their escape with the exiting crowd. They would be discovered before then. They needed to leave now.

But the stretch of park between the parade grounds and the exit was nearly deserted as all the visitors gathered around the lake. If they attempted a mad dash for the exit, they would be exposed again, caught out in the open. And surely the park gate was under watch, too.

Next to him, Fiona kept a hand clutched to her wounded side. Blood oozed between her fingers. Her eyes met his, panicked.

She whispered to him, "What are we going to do?"

Gray kept them moving through the crowd. He only had one idea. It was dangerous, but caution was not going to get them out of the park. He turned Fiona toward him.

"I need to bloody my hands."

"What?"

He motioned to her shirt.

Frowning, she lifted the edge of her blouse. "Be careful…"

He gently wiped the blood dribbling from the raw wound. She winced and let out a small gasp.

"Sorry," he said.

"Your fingers are freezing," she mumbled.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live."

That was the goal.

"I'm going to have to carry you in a second," Gray said, standing up.

"What are you—?"

"Just be ready to scream when I tell you."

She wrinkled her nose in confusion, but nodded.

He waited for the right moment. Flutes and drums started in the distance. Gray edged Fiona in the direction of the main gates. Past the heads of a group of schoolchildren, Gray spotted a familiar figure in a trench coat, arm in a sling, Grette's murderer. He waded through the pocket of youngsters, eyes searching.

Gray retreated into a mob of Germans singing a ballad in tune with the flutes and drums. As the song ended, a burst of fireworks concluded in a tympani of crackling explosions.

"Here we go," Gray said, leaning down. He smeared his face with blood and picked Fiona up in his arms. Lifting her, he raised his voice and yelled in Danish. "Bomb!"

Crackling explosions punctuated his booming bellow.

"Scream," he whispered in Fiona's ear.

He lifted his face again, smeared in blood. On cue, Fiona wailed and shrieked in agony in his arms.

"Bomb!" Gray yelled again.

Faces turned in his direction. Fireworks boomed. The fresh blood glistened on his cheeks. At first no one moved. Then like a turning tide, one person backed away, bumping against another. Confused cries and calls rose. More people began to retreat.

Gray kept after those retreating, staying among the most panicked.

Fiona cried and thrashed. She waved an arm, fingers dripping with blood.

Confusion spread like wildfire. Gray's bellow caught on the dry tinder, whetted by attacks in London and Spain. More cries of Bomb! echoed through the crowd, carried from one breath to another.

Like a spooked herd of cattle, the crowd bristled and bumped against one another. Claustrophobia accentuated the anxiety. Fireworks died overhead, but by now, frightened cries erupted across the parade route. As one person fled, two more took flight, reflexive, growing exponentially. Feet pounded on pavement, retreating, aiming for the exit.

A trickle became a surge.

The stampede toward the exit began.

Gray allowed himself to be carried with it, Fiona in his arms. He prayed no one was trampled. But so far the retreat was not in full panic. With the boom of the fireworks ended, confusion reigned more than horror. Still, the flow of the crowd hastened toward the main gate.

Gray set Fiona down, freeing his arms. He wiped his face clean with the sleeve of his Armani jacket. Fiona stayed at his side, one hand clutching his belt to keep anchored to him amid the throng.

The gate appeared ahead.

Gray nodded toward it. "If anything happens…run. Keep going."

"I don't know if I can make it. Side hurts like a bitch."

Gray saw that she was limping now, scrunched over slightly.

Up ahead, Gray saw security guards trying to control the crowd through the gates, keeping the press of bodies from crushing anyone. As he watched, Gray spotted a pair of guards standing off to the side, conspicuously not helping with crowd control. A young man and woman. Both snowy blond. The bidders from the auction house. In disguise, they guarded the gates. Both had bolstered pistols, palms resting on them.

For just a moment, the woman's eyes met his in the crowd.

But they shifted away.

Then snapped back again.

Recognition.

Gray backpedaled through the crowd, fighting the current.

"What?" Fiona asked, pushed behind him.

"Go back. We need to find another way."

"How?"

Gray edged off to the side, swimming against the riptide. It was too hard to retreat straight back. A moment later, he broke free. Only a handful of people still bustled around him, a small eddy in the greater current.

They needed better coverage.

Gray saw that they had reached the edge of the deserted parade route. The floats had ground to a stop, lights still blinking, but no music. It seemed the panic had spread to the float operators. They had abandoned their chariots and fled. Even the security guards had moved to the gates.

Gray spotted the open door to a cab of one of the floats.

"This way," he said.

He half carried Fiona away from the crowd and ran for the float. Over the cab towered a giant illuminated puppet of a gangly duck with an oversize head. Gray recognized the figure. From the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling."

They dashed under one of its upraised wings aglow with twinkling yellow lights, plainly meant to flap. Gray helped Fiona into the cab, expecting to be shot in the back at any moment. He climbed in after her and closed the door, snapping it shut as quietly as he could.

As he glanced out the windshield, he appreciated his caution.

A figure appeared ahead, stepping out of the crowd, dressed in black. Grette's killer. He did not bother hiding his shotgun. All attention had diverted to the front of the park. He circled the edge of the retreating crowd, staring out toward the lake and parade circuit.

Gray ducked with Fiona.

The man passed within yards and continued down the line of abandoned floats.

"That was close," Fiona whispered. "We should—"

"Shh." Gray pressed a finger to her lips. His elbow nudged a lever. Something clicked in the dashboard.

Oh crap…

Speakers buried in the puppet overhead erupted.

—QUACK, QUACK, QUACK…QUACK, QUACK, QUACK—

The Ugly Duckling had awakened.

And everyone knew it.

Gray straightened. Thirty yards away, the gunman swung around.

There was no hiding now.

Suddenly the cab's engine growled. Glancing over, he saw Fiona sitting up, popping the clutch.

"Found the key in the ignition," she said and shifted into gear. The float lurched forward, swinging out of line.

"Fiona, let me—"

"You drove last time. And look where that got us." She aimed straight for the gunman with the shotgun. "Besides, I owe this bastard."

So she had recognized him, too. The man who murdered her grandmother. She had shifted into second by the time he raised his shotgun. She barreled

The Ugly Duckling had awakened.

And everyone knew it.

Gray straightened. Thirty yards away, the gunman swung around.

There was no hiding now.

Suddenly the cab's engine growled. Glancing over, he saw Fiona sitting up, popping the clutch.

"Found the key in the ignition," she said and shifted into gear. The float lurched forward, swinging out of line.

"Fiona, let me—"

"You drove last time. And look where that got us." She aimed straight for the gunman with the shotgun. "Besides, I owe this bastard."

So she had recognized him, too. The man who murdered her grandmother. She had shifted into second by the time he raised his shotgun. She barreled

Returning his attention to the row of levers, Gray grabbed the left-most one. It only made sense. He yanked it down. Gears ground. The Duckling's left wing, raised a moment ago, flapped low. It struck the gunman in the neck, clotheslining him from the side, shattering vertebrae. The man was lifted off his feet and tossed aside.

"Go for the gates!" Gray urged.

The Ugly Duckling had its first taste of blood.

—QUACK, QUACK, QUACK…QUACK, QUACK, QUACK—

The siren call of the float cleared a path. People scattered to the sides. The security guards were crushed back by the crowd. Even those in disguise. The service gate next to the main entrance, thrown wide earlier to ease the crush of fleeing people, stood open.

Fiona aimed for it.

The duck shattered through it, tearing off its deadly left wing. The cab shuddered, and they were on the streets. Fiona headed away.

"Take the first corner," Gray said, pointing.

She obeyed, downshifting into the turn like a pro. The Duckling flew around the corner. After two more turns, Gray urged her to slow down.

"We can't keep driving this thing," he said. "It's too conspicuous."

"You think?" Fiona glanced to him and shook her head in exasperation.

Gray found a long wrench in a tool kit. He had them stop at the top of a hill and waved Fiona out. Shifting over, Gray popped the clutch, jammed the wrench on the accelerator, and jumped to the curb.

The Ugly Duckling took off, lights blazing, clipping parked cars as it fled downhill. Wherever it finally came to roost, the crash site would divert the attention of any trackers.

Gray headed in the opposite direction. They should be safe for a few hours. He checked his watch. Plenty of time to reach the airport. And Monk. He would be touching down shortly.

Fiona limped beside him, eyes glancing back. Behind them, the Duckling trumpeted into the night.

—QUACK, QUACK, QUACK…QUACK, QUACK, QUACK—

"I'm going to miss him," Fiona said.

"Me, too."

4:35 a.m. HIMALAYAS

Painter stood by the hearth. He had risen from his chair upon the pronouncement of his death sentence.

The massive guard had come forward three steps when Painter rose to his feet, but Anna had held the man back with a raised hand. "Nein, Klaus. Alles 1st ganz recht."

Painter waited for the guard, Klaus, to return to his post by the door.

"There's no cure?"

Anna nodded. "I spoke truly."

"Then why isn't Painter showing the same madness as the monks?" Lisa asked.

Anna glanced to Painter. "You were away from the monastery, Ja? At the outlying village. Your exposure was less. Rather than the rapid neurological degeneration, you're experiencing a slower, more generalized bodily deterioration. Still, it is a death sentence."

Anna must have read something in his face.

"While there is no cure, there is a hope of slowing the deterioration. Over the years, experimenting with animals, we have devised some models that show promise. We can prolong your life. Or at least we could have."

"What do you mean?" Lisa asked.

Anna stood. "It is why I called you down here. To show you." She nodded to the guard, Klaus, who opened the door. "Follow me. And perhaps we'll find a way to help each other."

Painter offered Lisa a hand as Anna stepped away. He burned with curiosity. He sensed both a trap and a measure of hope.

What better bait?

Lisa leaned toward him as she stood. "What is going on?" she whispered in his ear.

"I'm not sure." He glanced to Anna as she spoke with Klaus.

Perhaps we'll find a way to help each other.

Painter had planned to propose the same to Anna, even discussed it with Lisa earlier, to bargain for their lives, to buy time. Had they been eavesdropped upon? Bugged? Or had matters simply grown so much worse here that their cooperation was truly needed?

Now he was worried.

"It must have something to do with that explosion we heard," Lisa said.

Painter nodded. He definitely needed more information. For now, he tabled any concern about his own health…though it was difficult, as another migraine built behind his eyes, aching in his back molars, reminding him of his illness with every throb.

Anna motioned them over. Klaus stepped back. He did not look happy. Then again, Painter had yet to see the man happy. And for some reason, he hoped never to. What made this man happy had to involve screaming and bloodshed.

"If you'll come with me," Anna said with cold politeness.

She headed out the door, flanked by two of the outer guardsmen. Klaus followed Lisa and Painter, trailed by another two armed men.

They headed in a direction different from their plush prison cell. After a few turns a straight tunnel, wider than any of the others, stretched into the heart of the mountain. It was also lit by a row of electric bulbs, lined up in wire cages along one wall. It was the first sign of any modern amenities.

They walked along the corridor.

Painter noted the smoky reek to the air. It grew stronger as they progressed. He returned his attention to Anna.

"So you know what made me sick," he said.

"It was the accident, as I said before."

"An accident involving what?" he pressed.

"The answer is not easy. It stretches far back into history."

"Back to when you were Nazis?"

Anna glanced to him. "Back to the origin of life on this planet."

"Really?" Painter said. "So how long is this story? Remember, I only have three days left."

She smiled at him again and shook her head. "In that case, I'll jump forward to when my grandfather first came to the GranitschloR. At the end of the war. Are you familiar with the turmoil at that time? The chaos in Europe as Germany crumbled."

"Everything up for grabs."

"And not just German land and resources, but also our research. Allied forces sent competing parties, scientists and soldiers, scouring the German countryside, pillaging for secret technology. It was a free-for-all." Anna frowned at them. "Is that the right word?"

Painter and Lisa both nodded.

"Britain alone sent in five thousand soldiers and civilians, under the code name T-Force. Technology Force. Their stated goal was to locate and preserve German technology from looting and robbery, when in fact looting and robbery was their true goal, competing against American, French, and Russian counterparts. Do you know who was the founder of the British T-Force?"

Painter shook his head. He could not help comparing his own Sigma Force to the earlier British World War II teams. Tech-plunderers. He would love to discuss the same with Sigma's founder, Sean McKnight. If he lived that long.

"Who was their leader?" Lisa asked.

"A gentleman named Commander Ian Fleming."

Lisa made a dismissive snort. "The writer who created James Bond?"

"The same. It was said he patterned his character on some of the men on his team. That gives you some idea of the roughshod and cavalier exuberance of these plunderers."

"To the victor go the spoils of war," Painter quoted with a shrug.

"Perhaps. But it was my grandfather's duty to protect as much of that technology as possible. He was an officer in the Sicherheitsdienst." She glanced at Painter, testing him.

So the game was not over. He was up for the challenge. "The Sicherheitsdienst was the group of SS commandos involved in evacuation of

German treasures: art, gold, antiquities, and technology."

She nodded at him. "In the final days of the war, as Russia pushed across the eastern lines, my grandfather was given what you Americans call a deep black mission. He received his orders from Heinrich Himmler himself, before the Reichsfuhrer was captured and committed suicide."

"And his orders?" Painter asked.

"To remove, safeguard, and destroy all evidence of a project code-named Chronos. At the heart of the project was a device simply called die Glocke. Or the Bell. The research lab was buried deep underground, in an abandoned mine in the Sudeten Mountains. He had no idea what was the purpose of the project, but he would eventually. He almost destroyed it then, but he had his orders."

"So he escaped with the Bell. How?"

"Two plans were laid in place. One flight to the north through Norway, another to the south through the Adriatic. There were agents waiting to assist him on both routes. My grandfather opted to go north. Himmler had told him about GranitschloR. He fled here with a group of Nazi scientists, some with histories in the camps. All needed a place to hide. Plus my grandfather dangled a project that few scientists could resist."

"The Bell," Painter concluded.

"Exactly. It offered something many scientists at the time had been seeking through other means."

"And what was that?"

Anna sighed and glanced back to Klaus. "Perfection." She remained silent for a few moments, lost in some private sadness.

Ahead the passage finally ended. A pair of giant ironwood doors stood open at the end. Beyond the threshold, a crude staircase spiraled down into the mountain. It was cut from the rock, but the staircase circled around a center pillar of steel as thick as a tree's trunk. They wound down around it.

Painter stared up. The pillar pierced the top of the roof and continued higher…possibly all the way out the shoulder of the mountain. Lightning rod, he thought. He also's me I led a hint of ozone in the air, stronger now than the smoke.

Anna noted his attention. "We use the shaft to vent excess energies out of the mountain." She pointed up.

Painter craned. He pictured the ghost lights reported in the area. Was this their source? Both of the lights and perhaps the illness?

Biting back his anger, Painter concentrated on the stairs. As his head pounded, the winding aggravated a growing vertigo. Seeking distraction, he continued their dialogue. "Back to the story of the Bell. What did it do?"

Anna broke out of her reverie. "At first no one knew. It came out of research into a new energy source. Some thought it might even be a crude time machine. That was why it was code-named Chronos."

"Time travel?" Painter said.

"You have to remember," Anna said, "the Nazis were light-years ahead of other nations in certain technologies. That was why there was such fervent scientific piracy after the war. But let me backtrack. During the early part of the century, two theoretical systems were in competition: the theory of relativity and quantum theory. And while they didn't necessarily contradict each other, even Einstein, the father of relativity, spoke of the two theories as incompatible. The theories split the scientific community into two camps. And we know very well on which side most of the Western world concentrated."

"Einstein's relativity."

Anna nodded. "Which led to splitting the atom, bombs, and nuclear energy. The entire world became the Manhattan Project. All based on Einstein's work. The Nazis went a different route, but with no less fervor. They had their own equivalent of the Manhattan Project, but one based on the other theoretical camp. Quantum theory."

"Why go that route?" Lisa asked.

"For a simple reason." Anna turned to her. "Because Einstein was a Jew."

"What?"

"Remember the context of the time. Einstein was a Jew. In the Nazis' eyes, that assigned lesser value to his discoveries. Instead, the Nazis took to heart the physical discoveries of pure German scientists, considering their works more valid and important. The Nazis based their Manhattan Project on the work of scientists like Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger, and most importantly Max Planck, the father of quantum theory. All had solid roots in the Fatherland. So the Nazis proceeded on a course of practical applications based on quantum mechanics, work that even today is considered groundbreaking. The Nazi scientists believed a power source could be tapped based on experiments with quantum models. Something that is only being realized today. Modern science calls this power zero point energy."

"Zero point?" Lisa glanced to Painter.

He nodded, well familiar with the scientific concept. "When something is chilled to absolute zero—almost three hundred degrees below zero Centigrade—all atomic motion stops. A complete standstill. The zero point of nature. Yet even then, energy persists. A background radiation that shouldn't be there. The energy's presence could not be adequately explained by traditional theories."

"But quantum theory does," Anna said firmly. "It allows for movement even when matter is frozen to an absolute standstill."

"How is that possible?" Lisa asked.

"At absolute zero, particles might not move up, down, right, or left, but according to quantum mechanics, they could flash into and out of existence, producing energy. What is called zero point energy."

"Into and out of existence?" Lisa seemed little convinced.

Painter took the reins. "Quantum physics gets a bit weird. But while the concept seems crazy, the energy is real. Recorded in labs. Around the world, scientists are seeking ways to tap into this energy at the core of all existence. It offers a source of infinite, limitless power."

Anna nodded. "And the Nazis were experimenting with this energy with all the fervor of your Manhattan Project."

Lisa's eyes grew wide. "An unlimited source of power. If they had discovered it, it would have changed the course of the war."

Anna lifted one hand, correcting her. "Who is to say they didn't discover it? It is documented that in the last months of the war, the Nazis had achieved remarkable breakthroughs. Projects with the name Feuerball and Kugelblitz. Details of which can be found among the unclassified records of the British T-Force. But the discoveries came too late. Facilities were bombed, scientists killed, research stolen. Whatever was left disappeared into the deep black projects of various nations."

"But not the Bell," Painter said, drawing the discussion back to its original point. His nausea would not let the conversation stray too far afield.

"Not the Bell," Anna agreed. "My grandfather managed to escape with the heart of the Chronos Project, born of research into zero point energy. The project was given a new name by my grandfather. Schwarze Sonne"

"Black Sun," Painter translated.

"Sehr gut."

"But what about this Bell?" Painter said. "What did it do?"

"It was what made you sick," Anna said. "Damaged you at the quantum level, where no pill or remedy can reach."

Painter almost tripped a step. He needed a moment to digest the information. Damaged at the quantum level. What did that mean?

The last stairs appeared ahead, blocked by a cordon of crossed wood beams, guarded by another pair of men with rifles. Though stunned, Painter noted the scorched rock along the roof of the last turn of the spiral.

Beyond opened a cavernous vault. Painter could not see far into it, but he could still feel the heat. Every surface was blackened. A row of humped shapes lay under tarps. Dead bodies.

Here was the blast zone from the explosions they had heard earlier.

Out of the ruin, a figure appeared, blackened with ash, but his features were still recognizable. It was Gunther, the massive guardsman who had burned down the monastery. It seemed those here had reaped what they had sown.

Fire for fire.

Gunther crossed to the cordon. Anna and Klaus joined him. With Klaus and Gunther side by side, Painter recognized a similarity between the two giants—not physical features, but in some hardness and foreignness that was hard to pin down.

Gunther nodded to Klaus.

The other barely noted his presence.

Anna bowed her head with Gunther, speaking rapidly in German. All Painter could make out was a single word. It was the same in German and English.

Sabotage.

So all was not right in the Granite Castle. Was there a traitor here? If so, who? And what was their purpose? Were they friend or another foe?

Gunther's eyes fell upon Painter. His lips moved, but Painter could not discern what he said. Anna shook her head, disagreeing. Gunther's eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

Painter knew he should be relieved.

With a final pinched stare, Gunther turned and strode back into the blackened ruins.

Anna returned. "This is what I wanted to show you." She waved an arm at the destruction.

"The Bell," Painter said.

"It was destroyed. An act of sabotage."

Lisa stared at the ruin. "And it was this Bell that made Painter sick."

"And held the only chance for a cure."

Painter studied the devastation.

"Do you have a duplicate Bell?" Lisa asked. "Or can you fabricate another?"

Anna slowly shook her head. "One of the key components can't be duplicated.

Xerum 525. Even after sixty years, we've not been able to reformulate it."

"So no Bell, no cure," Painter said.

"But there might be a chance…if we help each other." Anna held out her hand. "If we cooperate…I give you my word."

Painter reached woodenly over and grasped her hand. Still, he hesitated. He sensed a level of subterfuge here. Something Anna had left unspoken. All her talk…all the explanations. They were all meant to misdirect. Why were they even offering him this deal?

Then it dawned on him.

He knew.

"The accident…" he said.

He felt Anna's fingers twitch in his.

"It wasn't an accident, was it?" He remembered the word he had overheard.

"It was sabotage, too."

Anna nodded. "At first, we thought it was an accident. We've had occasional problems with surges. Triggering spikes in the Bell's output. Nothing major. Venting the energies triggered a few illnesses locally. The occasional death."

Painter had to restrain himself from shaking his head. Nothing major, Anna had said. The illnesses and deaths were major enough to warrant Ang Gelu sending out an international call for help, drawing Painter here.

Anna continued, "But a few nights back, someone jinked with the settings during a routine test of the Bell. Exponentially increasing the output."

"And zapping the monastery and the village."

"That's right."

Painter tightened his grip on Anna's hand. It looked like she wanted to pull away. He wasn't about to let her. She was still hedging from full disclosure. But Painter knew the truth as surely as the headache that pressed now. It explained the offer of cooperation.

"But it wasn't just the monks and the village that were affected," Painter said. "Everyone here was, too. You're all sick like me. Not the rapid neurological degeneration seen at the monastery, but the slower bodily deterioration I'm experiencing."

Anna's eyes narrowed, studying him, weighing how much to tell—then she finally nodded. "We were partially shielded here, somewhat protected. We vented the worst of the Bell's radiation upward and out."

Painter remembered the ghost lights seen dancing in the mountaintops. To spare themselves, the Germans had blasted the immediate area with radiation, including the neighboring monastery. But the scientists here had failed to escape totally unscathed.

Anna met his gaze, unflinching, unapologetic. "We're now all under the same death sentence."

Painter considered his options. He had none. Though neither side trusted the other, they were all in the same boat, so they might as well get closer. Gripping her hand, he shook it, sealing the pact.

Sigma and the Nazis together.

SECOND

7 BLACK MAMBA

5:45 a.m.

HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI PRESERVE

ZULULAND, SOUTH AFRICA

Khamisi Taylor stood in front of the head warden's desk. Stiff-backed, he waited while Warden Gerald Kellogg finished reading his preliminary report on the past day's tragedy.

The only sound was the creak of an overhead fan, slowly churning.

Khamisi wore a borrowed set of clothes, the pants too long, the shirt too tight. But they were dry. After spending all day and night in the tepid water hole, shoulder deep in the muddy pan, arms aching while he held the rifle at the ready, he appreciated the warm clothes and solid footing.

He also appreciated the daylight. Through the back office window, dawn painted the sky a dusty rose. The world reappeared out of the shadows.

He had survived. He was alive.

But he had yet to fully accept that.

In his skull, the calls of the ukufa still echoed.

Closer at hand, the head warden, Gerald Kellogg, rubbed absently at his bushy auburn mustache as he continued to read. The morning sunlight gleamed off his bald pate, giving it an oily pink sheen. He finally looked up, staring over a pair of half-moon reading glasses perched on his nose.

"And is this the report you intend for me to file, Mr. Taylor?" Warden Kellogg ran a finger along one line on the yellow paper. '"An unknown apex predator.' Is that all you can say about what killed and dragged off Dr. Fairfield?"

"Sir, I didn't get a clear look at the animal. It was something large and white-furred. As I reported."

"A lioness perhaps," Kellogg said.

"No, sir…it was no lion."

"How can you be sure? Didn't you just say you didn't see it?"

"Yes, sir…what I meant, sir…was that what I saw did not match any known predators of the lowveld."

"Then what was it?"

Khamisi remained silent. He knew better than to mention the ukufa. In the brightness of an ordinary day, whispers of monsters would only provoke derision. The superstitious tribesman.

"So some creature attacked and dragged off Dr. Fairfield, something you never saw clearly enough to identify…"

Khamisi nodded slowly.

"…yet still you ran and hid in the water hole?" Gerald Kellogg crumpled up the report. "How do you think that reflects on our service here? One of our own wardens allows a sixty-year-old woman to be killed while he ran and hid. Tucked tail without even knowing what was out there."

"Sir. That's not a fair—"

"Fair?" The warden's voice boomed, loud enough to be heard in the outer room, where the entire staff had been called in due to the emergency. "How fair is it that I have to contact Dr. Fairfield's next of kin and tell them their mother or grandmother was attacked and eaten while one of my wardens—one of my armed wardens—ran and hid?"

"There was nothing I could do."

"Except save your own…skin."

Khamisi heard the unspoken word purposefully left out.

Save your biack skin.

Gerald Kellogg had not been thrilled to hire Khamisi. The warden's family had ties to the old Afrikaner government, and he had risen through the ranks because of his connections and ties. He still belonged to the Oldavi country club, exclusively white, where even after the fall of apartheid much economic power was still brokered. Though new laws had been passed, barriers broken in government, unions formed, business was still business in South Africa. The De Beerses still owned their diamond mines. The Waalenbergs still owned most everything else.

Change would be slow.

Khamisi's position was a small step, one he meant to keep open for the next generation. So he kept his voice calm. "I'm sure once investigators canvass the site, they'll support my course of action."

"Will they, now, Mr. Taylor? I sent a dozen men out there, an hour after the search-and-rescue helicopter found you after midnight wallowing in the muddy water. They reported in fifteen minutes ago. They found the rhino carcass, almost stripped by jackals and hyenas. No sign of the calf that you reported. And more importantly, no sign of Dr. Fairfield."

Khamisi shook his head, searching for a way past these accusations. He flashed back to his long vigil in the water hole. The day seemed never ending, but the night had been worse. With the loss of the sun, Khamisi had waited to be attacked. Instead, he had heard the yip-yip-yip of hyenas and the bark of jackals descend into the valley, accompanied by the furious growls and cries of scuffling scavengers.

The presence of the scavengers had made Khamisi almost believe it was safe to attempt a run for the Jeep. If the usual jackals and hyenas had returned, then perhaps the ukufa had left.

Still, he hadn't moved.

Fresh in his mind had been the ambush that had waylaid Dr. Fairfield.

"Surely there were other tracks," he said.

"There were."

Khamisi brightened. If he had proof…

"They were lion tracks," Warden Kellogg said. "Two adult females. Just like I said earlier."

"Lions?"

"Yes. I believe we have a few pictures of these strange creatures around here somewhere. Maybe you'd better study them so you can identify them in the future. What with all the free time you'll have."

"Sir?"

"You're suspended, Mr. Taylor."

Khamisi could not keep the shock from his face. He knew if it had been any other warden…any other white warden…that there would be more leniency, more trust. But not when he was wearing a tribesman's skin. He knew better than to argue. It would only make matters worse.

"Without pay, Mr. Taylor. Until a full inquiry is completed."

A full inquiry. Khamisi knew how that would end.

"And I've been told by the local constabulary to inform you that you are not to leave the immediate area. There is also the matter of criminal negligence to rule out."

Khamisi closed his eyes.

Despite the rising sun, the nightmare refused to end.

Ten minutes later, Gerald Kellogg still sat at his desk, his office now empty. He ran a sweating palm over the top of his head, like shining an apple. The sour set to his lips refused to relax. The night had been interminable, so many fires to put out. And there were still a thousand details to attend to: dealing with the media, attending to the biologist's family, including Dr. Fairfield's partner.

Kellogg shook his head at this last problem. Dr. Paula Kane would prove the biggest thorn in the coming day. He knew the term "partnership" between the two older women went beyond research. It was Dr. Paula Kane who had pressed for the search-and-rescue helicopter last night after Dr. Fairfield hadn't returned home from the day trip into the bush.

Woken in the middle of the night, Gerald had urged caution. It was not uncommon for researchers to bivouac overnight. What got him out of bed was when he learned where Dr. Fairfield had been headed with one of his wardens. To the park's northwestern border. Not far from the Waalenbergs' private estate and preserve.

A search near there required his immediate supervision.

It had been a hectic night, necessitating fast footwork and coordination, but everything was almost over, the genie returned to its proverbial bottle.

Except for one last item to attend to.

There was no reason to put it off any longer.

He picked up the phone and dialed the private number. He waited for the line to pick up, tapping a pen on a notepad.

"Report," came a terse response as the connection was made.

"I just finished my interview with him."

"And?"

"He saw nothing…nothing clearly."

"What does that mean?"

"Claims to have caught glimpses. Nothing he could identify."

A long stretch of silence followed.

Gerald grew nervous. "His report will be edited. Lions. That will be the conclusion. We'll shoot a few for good measure and end the matter in another day or so. The man, meanwhile, has been suspended."

"Very good. You know what you must do."

Kellogg argued against it. "He's been suspended. He won't dare rock the boat. I've scared him good. I don't think—"

"Exactly. Don't think. You have your orders. Make it look like an accident."

The line clicked off.

Kellogg settled the phone receiver in its cradle. The room stifled despite the chug of the air-conditioning and the slowly turning fan. Nothing could truly withstand the blistering savanna heat as the day warmed up.

But it wasn't the temperature that rolled a bead of sweat down his forehead.

You have your orders.

And he knew well enough not to disobey.

He glanced down to the notepad on his desk. He had absently doodled as he spoke on the phone, a reflection of how uneasy the man on the other end of the line made him feel.

Gerald hurriedly scribbled over it, tore the sheet off, and ripped the page into tiny strips. No evidence. Ever. That was the rule. And he had his orders.

Make it look like an accident.

4:50 a.m.

37,000 FEET ABOVE GERMANY

"We'll be landing in another hour," Monk said. "Maybe you should try taking another nap."

Gray stretched. The low hum of the Challenger 600 jet had lulled him, but his mind still ticked through the past day's events, trying to piece the puzzle together. He had the Darwin Bible open in front of him.

"How's Fiona?" he asked.

Monk nodded back to the sofa near the rear of the plane. Fiona was sprawled out under a blanket. "Crashed finally. Knocked her down with some pain meds. Kid doesn't shut up."

She had been talking nonstop since the pair arrived at the Copenhagen airport. Gray had alerted Monk by telephone, and he had arranged a private car to whisk them safely to the waiting jet, already refueling. Logan smoothed out all diplomatic and visa issues.

Still, Gray had not breathed easily until the Challenger was wheels up and into the air.

"Her bullet wound?"

Monk shrugged and collapsed into a neighboring chair. "Scratch really. Okay, a really deep nasty scratch. Will hurt like hell the next few days. But some antiseptic, liquid skin sealant, and a bandage wrap, and she'll be right as rain in a couple more days. Ready to rip more people off."

Monk patted his jacket, making sure his wallet was still there.

"She only stole it as a way to say hello," Gray said. He hid a tired smile. Grette Neal had explained the same to him yesterday. God, was it only yesterday?

While Monk had ministered to Fiona, Gray had reported to Logan. The temporary director was not happy to hear about his escapades following the auction…an auction Gray had been forbidden to attend. Still, the damage was done. Luckily he still had the flash drive containing all the participants' pictures, including the ice-blond pair. He had forwarded it all to Logan, along with faxed copies of some of the pages from the Bible and his notes. He had even sent his drawing of the cloverleaf tattoo he had spotted on the night's assailants. Some unknown blond assassin squad.

Logan and Kat would work at their end to ascertain who was behind all this.

Logan had already made inquiries with the Copenhagen authorities. They reported no deaths at the park. It seemed the body of the assassin they had clotheslined had disappeared. So the aftermath of their flight from Tivoli Gardens proved no worse than bruises and scrapes among the jostled visitors. No serious injuries…except to a parade float.

He watched Monk check the pocket of his jeans.

"Ring still there?" Gray asked, needling his friend.

"She didn't have to steal that, too."

Gray had to give Fiona credit. Fast fingers.

"So you going to tell me about that ring box?" Gray asked, closing the Darwin Bible.

"I wanted to surprise you with it…"

"Monk, I didn't know you cared that much."

"Oh, shut up. I meant I wanted to tell you about it in my own time, not…not because Ms. Copperfield over there pulled it out of a hat."

Gray leaned back, facing Monk, arms crossed. "So you're going to pop the question. I don't know…Mrs. Kat Kokkalis. She'll never go for it."

"I didn't think so either. I bought the damn thing two months ago. Haven't found the moment to ask her."

"More like, you hadn't found the courage."

"Well, maybe that, too."

Gray reached over and patted Monk on the knee. "She loves you, Monk. Quit worrying."

Monk grinned like a schoolboy at him. Not a good look for him. Still, Gray recognized the depth of feeling in his eyes. Along with a shimmer of genuine fear. Monk rubbed at the joint where his prosthetic hand met the stump of his wrist. Despite his bravado, the man had been shaken by last year's mutilation. Kat's attention had gone a long way toward healing him, more than any of the doctors. Still, a deep vein of insecurity remained.

Monk opened the small black velvet box and stared at the three-carat engagement ring. "Maybe I should have gotten a bigger diamond…especially now."

"What do you mean?"

Monk glanced over at him. The new expression shone from his face…a trembling hope was the best way to describe it. "Kat's pregnant."

Gray sat up, surprised. "What? How?"

"I think you know how" Monk said.

"Christ…congratulations," he blurted out, still recovering. The last came out somewhat as a question. "I mean…you are keeping the baby."

Monk raised one eyebrow.

"Of course," Gray said, shaking his head at his stupidity.

"It's still early," Monk said. "Kat doesn't want anyone to know…she said it was okay to tell you."

Gray nodded, taking time to assimilate the news. He tried to picture Monk as a father and was surprised how easy that was to imagine.

"My God, that's just great."

Monk snapped the ring box closed. "So what about you?"

Gray frowned. "What about me?"

"You and Rachel. What did she say when you called her about your escapades in Tivoli Gardens?"

Gray's brow crinkled.

Monk's eyes widened. "Gray…"

"What?"

"You didn't call her, did you?"

"I didn't think—"

"She's with the carabinieri. So you know she heard about any possible terrorist attack in Copenhagen. Especially some nut job yelling 'Bomb!' in a crowded park and joyriding in a parade float. She has to know you were involved."

Monk was right. He should have called her right away.

"Grayson Pierce, what am I going to do with you?" Monk shook his head sadly. "When are you going to cut that girl free?"

"What are you talking about?"

"C'mon. I'm happy you and Rachel have hit it off, but where's it really going?"

Gray bristled. "Not that it's any of your business, but that's what we were planning on discussing here, before all hell broke loose."

"Lucky break for you."

"You know, just because you have a two-month-old engagement ring in your pocket does not make you a relationship expert."

Monk held up both palms. "All right…backing off…I was just saying…"

Gray was not letting him off the hook that easily. "What?"

"You don't really want a relationship."

He blinked at the frontal assault. "What are you talking about? Rachel and I have been bending over backward to make this work. I love Rachel. You know that."

"I know you do. I never said otherwise. You just don't want a real relationship with her." Monk ticked off three items on his fingers. "That means wife, a mortgage, and kids."

Gray just shook his head.

"All you're doing with Rachel is enjoying a prolonged first date."

Gray sought some retort, but Monk was hitting too close to home. He remembered how it took overcoming a certain awkwardness each time he and Rachel met, a buffer that had to be crossed before a deeper intimacy could be reestablished. Like a first date.

"How long have I known you?" Monk asked.

Gray waved the question away.

"And during that time how many serious girlfriends have you had?" Monk formed his fist into a big zero. "And look who you pick for your first serious relationship."

"Rachel's wonderful."

"She is. And I think it's great that you're finally opening up more. But man, talk about setting up impossible barriers."

"What barriers?"

"How about the goddamn Atlantic for one. Standing between you and a full relationship." Monk waggled three fingers at him.

Wife, mortgage, kids.

"You're not ready," Monk said. "I mean, I mention Kat's pregnant and you should've seen your face. Scared the crap out of you. And it's my kid."

Gray's heart beat heavily in his throat. He found himself breathing harder. Punched in the gut.

Monk sighed. "You have issues, my man. Maybe something you need to work through with your pops. I don't know."

Gray was saved from responding by a chime over the jet's intercom.

The pilot reported, "We're approximately thirty minutes out. We'll be beginning our descent soon."

Gray glanced out the window. The sun rose to the east.

"Maybe I'll try to catch a little downtime," Gray muttered to the window. "Until we land."

"Sounds good."

Gray turned to Monk. He opened his mouth to respond in some way to Monk's words, but he resorted to the truth instead. "I do love Rachel."

Monk reclined his seat and rolled over to his side with a grunt. "I know. That's what makes it so hard."

7:05 a.m.

HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI PRESERVE

Khamisi Taylor sipped the tea in the small parlor. Though it was steeped well and sweetened with honey, he tasted none of it.

"And there's no chance Marcia could be alive?" Paula Kane asked.

Khamisi shook his head. He did not shrink from the reality. That was not why he had come here after his dressing-down by the head warden. He had wanted to retreat to his one-bedroom home at the edge of the preserve, where a row of squat houses were leased to the wardens on duty. Khamisi wondered how long he would be able to remain at the house if his suspension turned into a full dismissal.

Still, he had not returned directly home. Instead he had driven halfway across the park to another settlement of transient housing, a small enclave where park researchers resided for as long as their grant money lasted.

Khamisi had been to this particular whitewashed two-story Colonial home many times, with its giant shady acacia trees, tiny garden, and small courtyard where a smattering of chickens roamed. The two residents here never seemed to run out of grants. In fact, the last time Khamisi had been here was to celebrate the women's tenth anniversary here at the park. Among the scientific community, they had become as much of a fixture at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi as the big five trophy animals.

But now they were one.

Dr. Paula Kane sat on a tiny divan across the low table from Khamisi. Tears filled her eyes, but her cheeks remained dry.

"It's all right," she said. Her eyes wandered to a wall of photos, a panorama of a happy life. He knew the pair had been together since graduate school at Oxford so many years ago. "I hadn't held out much hope."

She was a small woman, slight of figure, with salt-and-pepper dark hair, cut square to her shoulder. Though he knew she was somewhere in her late fifties, she appeared a decade younger. She had always retained a certain hard beauty, exuding a confidence that surpassed any camouflaging makeup. But this morning, she appeared faded, a ghost of herself, something vital gone. It looked like she'd slept in her khaki pants and loose white blouse.

Khamisi had no words to ease the pain etched in every line of her body, only his sympathy. "I'm sorry."

Paula's eyes returned to him. "I know you did everything you could. I've heard the rumblings out there. A white woman dies, but a black man lives. It will not sit well with certain types out here."

Khamisi knew she was referring to the head warden. Paula and Marcia had butted heads with the man many times. She knew the warden's ties and memberships as well as any other. While apartheid might have been crushed in the cities and townships, out in the bush, the myth of the Great White Hunter still reigned supreme.

"Her death was not your fault," Paula said, reading something in his face.

He turned away. He appreciated her understanding, but at the same time, the warden's accusations had stoked his own guilt. Rationally, he knew he had done all he could to protect Dr. Fairfield. But he had come out of the bush. She had not. Those were the facts.

Khamisi stood. He didn't want to intrude any longer. He had come to pay his respects and to tell Dr. Kane in person what had transpired. He had done that.

"I should be going," he said.

Paula stood and accompanied him to the screen door. She stopped him with a touch before he left. "What do you think it was?" she asked.

He turned to her.

"What killed her?" Paula asked.

Khamisi stared out at the morning sunlight, too bright to speak of monsters. He had also been forbidden to discuss it. His job was on the line.

He glanced down to Paula and told her the truth.

"It was no lion."

"Then what—?"

"I'm going to find out."

He pushed through the screen door and climbed down the steps. His small rusted pickup sat baking in the sun. He crossed to it, climbed into its stifling interior, and headed back home.

For the hundredth time that morning, the prior day's terror unfolded. He barely heard the rumble of his engine over the echo of the ukufa's hunting screams. Not a lion. He would never believe that.

He reached the line of stilted houses, makeshift and without air-conditioning. The homes comprised staff housing here at the park. He braked with a cloud of red dust beside his front yard gate.

Exhausted, he would rest for a few hours.

Then he would seek the truth.

He already knew where he wanted to begin his investigation.

But that would have to wait.

As he approached his front yard fence, Khamisi noted that the gate hung ajar. He always made sure he latched it before leaving for the day. Then again, when the disappearances had been reported last night, someone might have come here to check if he was at home.

Still, the edge to Khamisi's senses had never dulled…not since the moment he heard that first cry in the jungle. In fact, he doubted his senses would ever relax.

He slipped through the gate. He noted his front door seemed secure. He spotted mail sprouting from his mailbox, untouched. He mounted the steps, one at a time.

He climbed, wishing he had at least a sidearm.

Floorboards creaked. The sound had come not from under his own feet—but from inside his house.

All of Khamisi's senses urged him to run.

Not again. Not this time.

He reached the porch, stood to the side, and tested the door latch.

Unlocked.

He unhitched the latch and pushed the door open. Near the back of the house, another floorboard rubbed.

"Who's there?" he called out.

8:52 a.m. HIMALAYAS

"Come see this."

Painter startled awake, instantly alert. A dagger of a headache stabbed between his eyes. He rolled off the bed, fully clothed. He had not realized he had fallen asleep. He and Lisa had returned to their room a couple of hours ago, under guard. Anna had needed to attend to matters and arrange for some items Painter had requested.

"How long have I been out?" he asked, the headache slowly fading.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were asleep." Lisa sat cross-legged by the table before the fireplace. She had sheets of paper scattered on the top. "Couldn't have been more than fifteen…twenty minutes. I wanted you to see this."

Painter stood. The room bobbled for a breath, then settled back into place. Not good. He crossed over to Lisa and sank beside her.

He noted her camera resting on some of the papers. Lisa had requested the

Nikon be returned as the first act of cooperation from their captors.

She slid a sheet of paper over to him. "Look."

Lisa had drawn a line of symbols across the paper. Painter recognized them as the runes that Lama Khemsar had scrawled on his wall. She must have copied it from the digital photo. Painter saw that each symbol had a corresponding letter under it.

^CHk'ftp? I ; D N N i

"It was a simple replacement code. Each rune representing a letter of the alphabet. Took some trial and error."

"Schwarze Sonne,"he read aloud.

"Black Sun. The name of the project here."

"So Lama Khemsar knew about all this." Painter shook his head. "The old Buddhist did have ties here."

"And plainly it traumatized him." Lisa took the paper from him. "The madness must have awakened old wounds. Brought them back to life."

"Or maybe the lama was cooperating all along, maintaining the monastery as some guard post of the castle here."

"If so, look what that cooperation gained him," Lisa said pointedly. "Is that an example of the reward we'll get for our cooperation?"

"We have no choice. It's the only way to stay alive. To stay necessary."

"And after that? When we're no longer necessary?"

Painter offered no delusions. "They'll kill us. Our cooperation is only buying us some time."

Painter noted she didn't flinch from the truth but seemed to take strength from it. A resolve stiffened her shoulders.

"So what do we do first?" she asked.

"Acknowledge the first step in any conflict."

"And that is?"

"Know thy enemy."

"I think I know too much about Anna and her crew as it is."

"No. I meant discovering who was behind the bombing here. The saboteur…and whoever employed him. Something larger is going on here. Those first few acts of sabotage—messing with the safety controls of the Bell, the first illnesses—they were meant to draw us. Raise some smoke. Lure us here with the rumors of strange illnesses."

"But why would they do that?"

"To make sure Anna's group was discovered and shut down. Don't you find it strange that the Bell, the heart of the technology, was only destroyed after we arrived here? What might that suggest?"

"While they wanted Anna's project shut down, they also didn't want the heart of the technology falling into anyone else's hands."

Painter nodded. "And maybe something even more dire. All this might be misdirection. A bit of sleight of hand. Look over here, while the real trick is pulled off out of sight. But who is the mysterious magician in the wings? What is his purpose, his intent? That's what we must find out."

"And the electronic equipment you requisitioned from Anna?"

"Perhaps a way to help us sniff out the mole here. If we can trap this saboteur, we might have some of our answers, find out who is really pulling all the strings out here."

A knock on the door startled them both.

Painter stood up as the bar was removed and the door swung open.

Anna strode in with Gunther at her side. The guard had cleaned up since the last time Painter had seen him. It was a sign of the man's menace that no other guards followed them inside. He did not even have a gun.

"I thought you might like to join us for breakfast," Anna said. "By the time we're finished, the equipment you requested should be here."

"All of it? How? From where?"

"Kathmandu. We have a sheltered helipad on the other side of the mountain."

"Really? And you've never been discovered?"

Anna shrugged. "It's simply a matter of folding our flights in with the dozens of daily sightseeing tours and mountaineering teams. The pilot should be back within the hour."

Painter nodded. He planned on putting that hour to the best of uses.

Gathering Intel.

Every problem had its solution. At least he hoped so.

They set out from their room. The hallways beyond were unusually crowded. Word had spread. Everyone seemed busy or angry or casting hard glances at them…as if Painter and Lisa were somehow to blame for the sabotage here. But no one approached too closely. Gunther's heavy tread cleared a path. Their captor had become their protector.

They finally reached Anna's study.

A long table had been set up before the fire, heaping platters upon it. Sausages, dark breads, steaming stews, porridges, aged cheeses, an assortment of blackberries, plums, and melons.

"Is there an army coming to join us?" Painter asked.

"Constant fuel is most important in cold climates, both for the home and the heart," Anna said, ever the good German.

They took their seats. Food was passed. Just one big happy family.

"If there's any hope for a cure," Lisa said, "we'll have to know more about this Bell of yours. Its history…how it works…"

Anna, sullen after the walk, brightened. What researcher didn't enjoy discussing their discoveries?

"It started out as an experiment as an energy generator," she began. "A new engine. The Bell got its name from its bell-shaped outer containment jar, a ceramic vessel the size of a hundred-gallon drum, lined by lead. Inside were two metal cylinders, one inside the other, that would be spun in opposite directions."

Anna pantomimed with her hands.

"Lubricating it all and filling the Bell was a mercurylike liquid metal. What was called Xerum 525."

Painter recalled the name. "That's the substance you said you couldn't duplicate."

Anna nodded. "We've tried for decades, trying to reverse engineer the liquid metal. Aspects of its composition defy testing. We know it contains thorium and beryllium peroxides, but that's about it. All we know for sure is that Xerum 525 was a by-product of Nazi research into zero point energy. It was produced at another lab, one destroyed just after the war."

"And you've not found a way to manufacture more?" Painter asked.

Anna shook her head.

"But what did the Bell actually do?" Lisa asked.

"As I said before, it was purely an experiment. Most likely another attempt to tap into the infinite power of zero point. Though once the Nazi researchers turned it on, strange effects were noted. The Bell emitted a pale glow. Electrical equipment in a huge radius short-circuited. Deaths were reported. During a series of follow-up experiments, they refined the device and built shielding. Experiments were done deep within an abandoned mine. No further deaths occurred, but villagers a kilometer away from the mine reported insomnia, vertigo, and muscle spasms. Something was being radiated by the Bell. Interest grew."

"As a potential weapon?" Painter guessed.

"I can't say. Many of the records were destroyed by the head researcher. But we do know the original team exposed all sorts of biologies to the Bell: ferns, molds, eggs, meat, milk. And an entire spectrum of animal life. Invertebrates and vertebrates. Cockroaches, snails, chameleons, toads, and of course mice and rats."

"And what about the top of the food chain?" Painter asked. "Humans."

Anna nodded. "I'm afraid so. Morality is often the first casualty to progress."

"So what happened during these experiments?" Lisa asked. She had lost all interest in her plate of food. Not in distaste for the subject matter but wide-eyed interest.

Anna seemed to sense a commonality here and turned her attention to Lisa. "Again the effects were inexplicable. The chlorophyll in plants disappeared, turning the plants white. Within hours they would decompose into a greasy sludge. In animals, blood would gel in veins. A crystalline substance would form within tissues, destroying cells from the inside out."

"Let me guess," Painter said. "Only the cockroaches were unaffected."

Lisa frowned at him, then returned to Anna. "Do you have any idea what caused those effects?"

"We can only conjecture. Even now. We believe the Bell, as it spins, creates a strong electromagnetic vortex. The presence of Xerum 525, a byproduct of earlier zero point research, when exposed to this vortex, generates an aura of strange quantum energies."

Painter put it together in his head. "So the Xerum 525 is the fuel source, and the Bell is the engine."

Anna nodded.

"Turning the Bell into a Mix master," a new voice grumbled.

All eyes turned to Gunther. He had a mouthful of sausage. It was the first time he had shown any interest in the conversation.

"A crude but accurate description," Anna concurred. "Imagine the nature of zero point as a bowl of cake batter. The spinning Bell is like a beater that dips into it and sucks quantum energy outward, into our existence, splattering with all manner of strange subatomic particles. The earliest experiments were attempts to manipulate the speed of this mixer and so control the splatter."

"To make less of a mess."

"And along with it, to lessen the degenerative side effects. And they succeeded. Adverse effects waned, and something remarkable took their place."

Painter knew they were coming to the heart of the matter.

Anna leaned forward. "Rather than degeneration of biologic tissues, the Nazi scientists began noting enhancements. Accelerated growth in molds. Gigantism in ferns. Faster reflexes in mice, and higher intelligence in rats. The consistency of the results could not be attributed to random mutations alone. And it appeared that the higher the order of animal, the more benefit was derived from exposure."

"So human test subjects went next," Painter said.

"Keep a historical perspective, Mr. Crowe. The Nazis were convinced that they would give rise to the next superrace. And here was a tool to do it in a generation. Morality held no benefit. There was a larger imperative."

"To create a master race. To rule the world."

"So the Nazis believed. To that end, they invested much effort in advancing research into the Bell. But before it could be completed, they ran out of time. Germany fell. The Bell was evacuated so the research could be continued in secret. It was the last great hope for the Third Reich. A chance for the Aryan race to be born anew. To arise and rule the world."

"And Himmler chose this place," Painter said. "Deep in the Himalayas. What madness." He shook his head.

"Oftentimes, it is madness more than genius that moves the world forward. Who else but the mad would reach so far, stretching for the impossible? And in so doing, prove the impossible possible."

"And sometimes it merely invents the most efficient means of genocide."

Anna sighed.

Lisa brought the discussion back in line. "What became of the human studies?" She kept her tone clinical.

Anna recognized a more collegial dining partner. "In adults, the effects were still detrimental. Especially at higher settings. But the research did not stop there. When a fetus was exposed in utero, one in six children born of such exposure showed remarkable improvements. Alterations in the gene for myostatin produced children with more well-developed muscles. Other enhancements arose, too. Keener eyesight, improved hand-eye coordination, and amazing IQ scores."

"Superchildren," Painter said.

"But sadly such children seldom lived past the age of two," Anna said. "Eventually they would begin to degenerate, going pale. Crystals formed in tissues. Fingers and toes necrosed and fell away."

"Interesting," Lisa said. "Sounds like the same side effects as the first series of tests."

Painter glanced at her. Did she just say interesting? Lisa's gaze was fixed on Anna with fascination. How could she remain so clinical? Then he noted Lisa's left knee bobbing up and down under the table. He touched her knee and calmed it. She trembled under his touch. Outwardly, her face continued to remain passive. Painter realized all of Lisa's interest was feigned. She was bottling up her anger and horror, allowing him to play good cop, bad cop. Her cooperative attitude allowed him to pepper their interrogation with a few harder questions, all the better to gain the answers he needed.

Painter squeezed her knee, acknowledging her effort.

Lisa continued her act. "You mentioned one out of six babies showed these short-lived improvements. What about the other five?"

Anna nodded. "Stillborn. Fatal mutations. Deaths of the mothers. Mortality was high."

"And who were all these mothers?" Painter asked, voicing the outrage for both of them. "Not volunteers, I'm assuming."

"Don't judge too harshly, Mr. Crowe. Do you know the level of infant mortality in your own country? It is worse than some third world countries. What benefit do those deaths gain?"

Oh, dear God, she can't be serious. It was a ludicrous comparison.

"The Nazis had their imperative," Anna said. "They were at least consistent."

Painter sought some words to blast her, but anger trapped his tongue.

Lisa spoke up instead. Her hand found his atop her knee and clutched tightly. "I'm assuming that these scientists sought some ways to further fine-tune the Bell, to eradicate these side effects."

"Of course. But by the end of the war, not much more progress was made. There is only one anecdotal report of a full success. A supposedly perfect child. Prior to this, all the children born under the Bell bore slight imperfections. Patches of pigment loss, organ asymmetry, different colored eyes." Anna glanced to Gunther, then back again. "But this child appeared unblemished. Even crude genetic analysis of the boy's genome tested flawless. But the technique employed to achieve this result remained unknown. The head researcher performed this last experiment in secret. When my grandfather came to evacuate the Bell, the head researcher objected and destroyed all of his personal lab notes. The child died shortly thereafter."

"From side effects?"

"No, the head researcher's daughter drowned herself and the baby."

"Why?"

Anna shook her head. "My grandfather refused to talk about it. As I said, the story was anecdotal."

"What was this researcher's name?" Painter asked.

"I don't recall. I can look it up, if you'd like."

Painter shrugged. If only he had access to Sigma's computers. He sensed there was more to her grandfather's story.

"And after the evacuation?" Lisa asked. "The research continued here?"

"Yes. Though isolated, we continued to keep a finger on the scientific community at large. After the war, Nazi scientists had spread to the winds, many into deep black projects around the world. Europe. Soviet Union. South America. The United States. They were our ears and eyes abroad, filtering data to us. Some still believed in the cause. Others were blackmailed with their pasts."

"So you kept current."

A nod. "Over the next two decades, great leaps were made. Superchildren were born who lived longer. They were raised like princes here. Given the title Ritter des Sonnekonig. Knights of the Sun King. To note their births from the Black Sun project."

"How very Wagnerian," Painter scoffed.

"Perhaps. My grandfather liked tradition. But I'll have you know all experimental subjects here at Granitschloft were volunteers."

"But was this a moral choice? Or was it because you didn't have any Jews handy in the Himalayas?"

Anna frowned, not even dignifying his remark with a comment. She continued, "While the progress was solid, decrepitude continued to plague the Sonnekonige. The onset of symptoms still generally occurred at about two years, but the symptoms were milder. What was an acute degeneration became a chronic one. And with the increased longevity, a new symptom arose: mental deterioration. Acute paranoia, schizophrenia, psychosis."

Lisa spoke up. "These last symptoms…they sound like what happened to the monks at the monastery."

Anna nodded. "It's all a matter of degree and age of exposure. Children exposed in utero to a controlled level of the Bell's quantum radiation showed enhancements, followed by a lifelong chronic degeneration. While adults, like Painter and me, exposed to moderate amounts of uncontrolled radiation were struck by a more acute form of the same degeneration, a more rapid decline. But the monks, exposed to a high level of the radiation, progressed immediately into the mental degenerative state."

"And the Sonnekonige?" Painter said.

"Like us, there was no cure for their disease. In fact, while the Bell holds promise of helping us, the Sonnekonige are immune to the Bell. It seems their exposure so young makes them resistant to any further manipulation by the Bell—for better or worse."

"So when they went mad…?" Painter pictured rampaging supermen throughout the castle.

"Such a condition threatened our security. The human tests were eventually halted."

Painter could not hide his surprise. "You abandoned the research?"

"Not exactly. Human testing was already an inefficient means of experimentation. It took too long to judge results. New models were employed. Modified strains of mice, fetal tissue grown in vitro, stem cells. With the human genome mapped, DNA testing became a faster method with which to judge progress. Our pace accelerated. I suspect if we restarted the Sonnekonige project, we'd see much better results today."

"So then why haven't you tried again?"

Anna shrugged. "We're still seeing dementia in our mice. That's worrisome. But mostly, we've declined human studies because our interests over the last decade have turned more clinical. We don't see ourselves as harbingers of a new master race. We are indeed no longer Nazis. We believe our work can benefit mankind as a whole, once perfected."

"So why not come out now?" Lisa asked.

"And be bound by the laws of nations and the ignorant? Science is not a democratic process. Such arbitrary restraints of morality would only slow our progress tenfold. That is not acceptable."

Painter forced himself not to snort. It seemed some Nazi philosophies still flourished here.

"What became of the Sonnekdnige?" Lisa asked.

"Most tragic. While many died of degenerative conditions, many more had to be euthanized when their minds deteriorated. Still, a handful have survived. Like Klaus, who you've met."

Painter pictured the giant guardsman from earlier. He remembered the man's palsied limb and stricken face, signs of degeneration. Painter's attention drifted over to Gunther. The man met his gaze, face unreadable. One blue eye, one dead white. Another of the Sonnekonige.

"Gunther was the last to be born here."

Anna pointed to her shoulder and signaled to the large man.

Frown lines deepened, but Gunther reached and rolled the loose edge of his sleeve to expose his upper arm. He revealed a black tattoo.

Y

"The symbol of the Sonnekonige" Anna said. "A mark of pride, duty, and accomplishment."

Gunther pulled down his sleeve, hiding it away.

Painter flashed back to the sled ride last night, to the snide comment directed at Gunther by one of the guards. What was the word again? Leprakonige. Leper King. Plainly there remained little respect for the former Knights of the Sun King. Gunther was the last of his kind, slowly degenerating into oblivion. Who would mourn him?

Anna's eyes lingered on Gunther before focusing back on them.

Maybe there would be one mourner.

Lisa spoke up. She still held Painter's hand. "One thing you've yet to make clear. The Bell. How is it bringing about these changes? You said they were too consistent to be mutations generated by random chance."

Anna nodded. "Indeed. Our research has not been limited to the effects of the Bell. Much of our studies have focused on howit works."

"Have you made much progress?" Painter asked.

"Of course. In fact, we are certain we understand the basic tenets of its functioning."

Painter blinked his surprise. "Really?"

Anna's brow crinkled. "I thought it was obvious." She glanced between Painter and Lisa. "The Bell controls evolution."

7:35 a.m.

HLUHLUWE-UMFOLOZI PRESERVE

"Who's there?" Khamisi repeated, standing at the threshold to his house. Someone lurked inside, back in the rear bedroom.

Or maybe it was some animal.

Monkeys were always breaking into homes, sometimes larger animals did.

Still, he refused to enter. He strained to see, but all the curtains had been drawn. After the ride here in the blinding sun, the gloom of his home was as dark as any jungle.

Standing on the porch, Khamisi reached through the door for the light switch. His fingers fumbled. He found and flicked the switch. A single lamp ignited, illuminating the sparsely furnished front room and a galley kitchen. But the light did nothing to show who or what waited in the back bedroom.

He heard a scuffle of something back there.

"Who—?"

A sharp sting to the side of his neck cut off his words. Startled, he fell forward into the room. His hand slapped at the bite. His fingers found something feathered imbedded there.

He pulled it out and stared at it, uncomprehending for a breath.

A dart.

He used the same to tranquilize large animals.

But this one was different.

It fell from his fingers.

The moment of incomprehension was all it took for the toxin to reach his brain. The world tipped on its side. Khamisi fought for balance—and failed.

The plank floor rushed toward his face.

He managed to catch himself slightly, but still he struck hard, cracking his head. Pinpoints of light shattered out into a closing darkness. His head lolled. From his angle, he spotted a stretch of rope on the planks. He focused harder. Not rope.

Snake. Ten feet long.

He recognized it on sight.

Black mamba.

It was dead, cut in half. A machete lay nearby. His machete.

Coldness numbed his limbs as the hard truth struck him.

The poisoned dart.

It hadn't been like those he employed in the field. This dart had two needles. Like fangs.

His eyes glazed upon the dead snake.

Staged.

Death by snakebite.

From the back bedroom, floorboards creaked. He had just enough strength left to turn his head. A dark figure stood in the doorway now, illuminated by the lamplight, studying him, expressionless.

No.

It made no sense.

Why?

He would have no answer.

Darkness folded over him, taking him away.

8 MIXED BLOOD

6:54 a.m.

PADERBORN, GERMANY

"You're staying here," Gray said. He stood in the center of the Challenger's main cabin, fists on his hips, not budging.

"Bollocks," Fiona retorted. A step away, she made her stand.

To the side, Monk leaned against the open jet doorway, arms crossed, much too amused.

"I still haven't told you the address," Fiona argued. "You can spend the next month searching door to door throughout the city, or I can go with you and take you to the place. Your choice, mate."

Gray's face heated. Why hadn't he teased the address from the girl when she was still weak and vulnerable? He shook his head. Weak and vulnerable never described Fiona.

"So what's it going to be?"

"Looks like we have a tagalong," Monk said.

Gray refused to relent. Maybe if he scared her, reminded her of her close call in Tivoli Gardens. "What about your gunshot wound?"

Fiona's nose flared. "What about it? Good as new. That liquid bandage. Patched me right up."

"She can even swim with it," Monk said. "Waterproof."

Gray glared at his partner. "That's not the point."

"Then what is the point?" Fiona pressed.

Gray focused back at her. He didn't want to be responsible for the girl any longer. And he certainly didn't have time to be babysitting her.

"He's afraid you'll get hurt again," Monk said with a shrug.

Gray sighed. "Fiona, just tell us the address."

"Once we're in the car," she said. "Then I'll tell you. I'm not staying cooped up in here."

"Day's wasting," Monk said. "And it looks like we might get wet."

The sky was blue and morning bright, but dark clouds stacked to the north. A storm was rolling in.

"Fine." Gray waved his partner out the door. He could at least keep an eye on Fiona.

The trio climbed down the jet steps. They had already cleared customs, and a rented BMW waited for them. Monk carried a black backpack over one shoulder, Gray a matching one. He glanced over to Fiona. She had one, too. Where—?

"There was an extra one," Monk explained. "Don't worry. There're no guns or flash grenades in hers. At least, I don't think so."

Gray shook his head and continued across the tarmac toward the parking garage. Besides the backpack, they were all similarly dressed: black jeans, sneakers, sweaters. Tourist haute couture. At least Fiona had customized her clothes with a few buttons. One caught his eye. It read: STRANGERS HAVE THE BEST CANDY.

As Gray entered the parking garage, he surreptitiously checked his weapons one last time. He patted the 9mm Glock bolstered under his sweater and fingered the hilt of a carbonized dagger sheathed at his left wrist. He had additional armaments in the backpack: flash grenades, packets of C4 explosive, extra clips.

He was not going anywhere unprepared this time.

They finally reached their ride. A midnight blue BMW 525i.

Fiona strode toward the driver's door.

Gray cut her off. "Funny."

Monk strode around the far side of the car and called, "Shotgun!"

Fiona ducked, searching around.

Gray steadied her and guided her toward the rear door. "He was only claiming the front seat."

Fiona scowled across the car at Monk. "Wanker."

"Sorry. Don't be so jumpy, kid."

They all climbed into the sedan. Gray started the engine and glanced back to Fiona. "Well? Where to?"

Monk already had a map pulled out.

Fiona leaned forward and reached over Monk's shoulder. She traced a finger along the map.

"Out of town. Twenty kilometers southwest. We have to go to the village of Buren in Alme Valley."

"What's the address there?"

Fiona leaned back. "Funny," she said, repeating his own word from a moment ago.

He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. She wore a disgusted look at his last lame attempt to coerce the information from her.

Couldn't blame a guy for trying.

She waved for him to head out.

With no choice, he obeyed.

On the far side of the parking garage, two figures sat in a white Mercedes roadster. The man lowered the binoculars and donned a pair of Italian sunglasses. He nodded to his twin sister beside him. She spoke into the satellite phone, whispering in Dutch.

Her other hand held his. He massaged his thumb across her tattoo.

She squeezed his fingers.

Glancing down, he noted where she had chewed one of her fingernails to a ragged nub. The imperfection was as glaring as a broken nose.

She noted his attention and tried to hide her nail, embarrassed.

There was no reason for shame. He understood the consternation and heartache that resulted in the chewed nail. They had lost Hans, one of their older brothers, last night.

Killed by the driver of the car that had just left.

Fury narrowed his vision as he watched the BMW slide out of the parking garage. The GPS transponder they'd planted would track the vehicle.

"Understood," his sister said into the phone. "As expected, they've followed the book's trail here. Undoubtedly, they will be headed to the Hirszfeld estate in Buren. We'll leave the jet under surveillance. All is prepared."

As she listened, she caught her twin brother's eye.

"Yes," she said both to the phone and her brother, "we will not fail. The Darwin Bible will be ours."

He nodded, agreeing. He slipped his hand from hers, twisted the key, and started the ignition.

"Good-bye, Grandfather," his sister said.

Lowering the phone, she reached over and shifted a single lock of his blond hair that had fallen out of place. She combed it in place with her fingers, then smoothed it out.

Perfect.

Always perfect.

He kissed the tips of her fingers as she pulled back.

Love and a promise.

They would have their revenge.

Mourning would come later.

He drifted their polar white Mercedes out of its parking place to begin the hunt.

11:08 a.m. HIMALAYAS

The soldering gun's tip flared fiery crimson. Painter steadied the tool. His hand shook, but it was not fear that trembled his fingers. The headache continued to pound behind his right eye. He had taken a fistful of Tylenol, along with two tabs of phenobarbital, an anticonvulsant. None of the drugs would stave off the eventual debilitation and madness, but according to Anna, they would buy him more functional hours.

How long did he have?

Less than three days, maybe even shorter before he was incapacitated.

He fought to block out this concern. Worry and despair could debilitate him just as quickly as the disease. As his grandfather said in that sage Pequot

Indian manner of his, Wringin'your hands only stops you from rollin' up your slee ves.

Taking this to heart, Painter concentrated on soldering the cable connection to an exposed ground wire. The wiring ran throughout the entire subterranean castle and out to its various antennas. Including the satellite uplink dish hidden somewhere near the top of the mountain.

Once done, Painter leaned back and waited for the new solder to cool. He sat at a bench with an array of tools and parts neatly aligned, like a surgeon. His workspace was flanked by two open laptops.

Both supplied by Gunther. The man who had slaughtered the monks. Murdered Ang Gelu. Painter still felt a well of fury whenever near the man.

Like now.

The large guard stood at his shoulder, watching his every move. They were alone in a maintenance room. Painter considered putting the soldering gun through the man's eye. But what then? They were miles from civilization, and a death sentence hung over his head. Cooperation was their only means of survival. To that end, Lisa remained with Anna in her study, continuing her own line of investigation into a cure.

Painter and Gunther pursued another angle.

Hunting down the saboteur.

According to Gunther, the bomb that had destroyed the Bell had been set by hand. And since no one had left the grounds since the explosion, the saboteur was likely still in the castle.

If they could apprehend the subject, perhaps more could be learned.

So a bit of bait had been distributed through word of mouth.

All that was left was to set the trap to go along with it.

One laptop was plugged into the castle's networked communications systems. Painter had already piggybacked into the system, using passwords supplied by Gunther. He had sent out a series of compressed code packets intended to monitor the system for all outgoing communication. If the saboteur tried to communicate to the outside world, he would be discovered, his location pinned down.

But Painter did not expect the saboteur to be so ham-fisted. He or she had survived and operated in secret for a long time. That implied cunning—and a means of communication independent of the castle's main communication network.

So Painter had built something new.

The saboteur must have obtained a private portable satellite phone, one employed in secret to communicate with his superiors. But such a phone needed a clear line-of-sight path between the unit's antenna and the geosynchronous orbiting satellite. Unfortunately there were too many niches, windows, and service hatches where the saboteur could accomplish this, too many to guard without raising suspicions.

So an alternative was needed.

Painter checked the signal amplifier he had attached to the ground wire. It was a device he had engineered himself back at Sigma. His expertise as a

Sigma operative, before assuming the directorship, had been on surveillance and microengineering. This was his arena.

The amplifier linked the ground wire to the second laptop.

"Should be ready," Painter said, his headache finally waning a bit.

"Turn it on."

Painter switched on the battery power source, set the amplitude of signal, and adjusted the pulse rate. The laptop would do the rest. It would monitor for any pickups. It was crude at best, not capable of eavesdropping. It could only gain a general signal-location of an illicit transmission, accurate to within a thirty-yard radius. It should be enough.

Painter fine-tuned his equipment. "All set. Now all we have to do is wait for the bastard to call out."

Gunther nodded.

"That is if the saboteur takes the bait," Painter added.

A half hour ago, they had spread a rumor that a cache of Xerum 525 had survived the explosion, locked in a lead-lined secret vault. It gave the entire castle's populace hope. If there was some of the irreplaceable fuel, then maybe a new Bell could be fabricated. Anna even had researchers assembling another Bell out of spare parts. If not a cure for the progressive disease, the Bell offered the chance to buy more time. For all of them.