The Bone Labyrinth

10

Gray read the mix of hope and fear in Lena Crandall’s face as he entered the small kitchen. Hand-hewn rafters supported the low ceiling, while the walls were exposed bricks dating back to the seventeenth century. The kitchen belonged to the rectory of Saint Catherine’s Church in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The geneticist was seated at an old oak-plank table at the back. Behind her, a fire crackled and popped in a soot-blackened stone fireplace.

“Is there any news about Maria?” Lena asked.

Seichan also looked on expectantly. She pushed away from the neighboring counter and passed him a steaming mug of coffee. He accepted it, while also nabbing a cheese pastry from a platter behind her — something called štrukli—and crossed to the table.

“I did get an update from Washington,” Gray said. “They’re still monitoring the GPS tracker believed to be with your sister’s party, but they’re only getting an intermittent signal.”

Lena lowered her eyes, her hands clasped tightly together atop the table. “Those monitoring bands were meant for short-range use. A precaution to help us keep track of Baako if he should ever lose himself in the center’s woods or get beyond the fences.”

Gray tried to picture that hybrid gorilla. During last night’s treacherous ride over the stormy mountains from Ogulin to Zagreb, Lena had described her research study — along with its unusual subject. The raid of that primate research center had to be connected to the attack here.

But how and why?

He pictured Kowalski’s face, wondering if the man was still alive.

Lena looked equally fearful for her twin sister.

He tried to reassure her. “For now the tracker is continuing to work, well enough for us to know the signal is moving west across the Pacific. We have a team already in the air, following and narrowing that gap. Once the kidnappers make landfall, we’ll close a noose around them.”

He avoided mentioning Painter’s larger fear: that these two attacks were likely orchestrated by a faction out of China. If so, rescuing Maria’s group after they reached the mainland could prove problematic at best.

Impossible at worst.

Lena raised another worry. “Those bands remain charged for only a day or so. If the batteries go out before they land, there’ll be no tracking them after that.”

Gray settled to a bench at the table. Painter hadn’t mentioned that detail.

If he even knew about it.

Either way, there was not much more Gray could do to help. Painter had assigned him to get Lena safely back to the States. They were awaiting details and instructions concerning that itinerary.

“What about Professor Wrightson and Dr. Arnaud?” Lena asked.

He shook his head. If the British geologist and French paleontologist were still alive, they were likely long gone from the area. His priority was to maintain a low profile, to keep Lena’s survival under wraps until she could be extracted. Father Novak had helped facilitate that, offering the use of his church once they had reached the city, a place to hole up for the remainder of the night. They had all gotten a few hours of sleep on some cots in a back room, but sunrise was only an hour away.

It would soon be time to get moving again.

A scuff of boots drew Gray’s attention to the kitchen door. Roland Novak entered, hauling a large book — the size of an atlas — under one arm. He carried a smaller book in his other hand, along with a rectangular metallic plate. The young priest appeared haggard, with saddlebags under his bloodshot eyes. It didn’t look like he had slept at all. Still, he trembled with excitement.

“You should all see this,” he pronounced as he crossed to the table, drawing Seichan along with him.

He placed the larger book on the table, its giant cover bound in leather with gilt lettering spelling out its title: Mundus Subterraneus.

“This is a copy of a book Father Athanasius Kircher published in 1665,” he stated, then placed the smaller book beside this larger volume. “And this is the tome we found in that other cave — a journal, I believe, that belonged to the reverend father.”

Gray stared down at the labyrinth inscribed on its cover.

Earlier, Roland and Lena had described what they had discovered in that cavern system under the mountains: a Gothic chapel preserving the remains of a Neanderthal man, whose bones were later stolen by the attackers. The chapel also seemed to have a historical connection to this Athanasius Kircher, a seventeenth-century Jesuit priest who might have removed another set of bones, possibly those of a female Neanderthal.

Roland must have used these past hours to investigate this thread. The priest’s passion — not to mention his fortitude in the face of danger — reminded Gray of a younger version of a dear friend, another Vatican priest who had died in the pursuit of ancient truths.

I could use your counsel now, Vigor.

Honoring that memory, Gray listened as Roland continued.

“Unfortunately,” the man said, “whatever was written in this journal was destroyed over the centuries, leaving only a few clues.”

“Like the key we found,” Lena added. From a pocket, she removed a large key and placed it atop the table. Despite the aged tarnish, a cherub and an arch of skulls were clearly visible atop it.

Roland nodded. “I have no idea what lock fits that particular key, but I decided to investigate the most obvious clue first.” He traced the outer edge of the labyrinth on the cover. “I thought this maze looked familiar. I believe it’s a depiction of a labyrinth from ancient Crete, where according to mythology the infamous Minotaur was caged. Look at this.”

The priest tugged a manila folder from the pages of the larger book and slipped free a printed page showing an old silver coin. “This was minted in Knossos, the capitol of Crete.”

Gray compared the labyrinth on the coin to the maze on the book’s cover. “They’re almost an exact match.”

“And from my research, it’s not just in Crete where you’ll see this labyrinth. Petroglyphs of this pattern have been carved into stones all around the globe. You can find them across Italy, Spain, Ireland, even as far north as Finland. And it’s not just petroglyphs. The ancient Indian Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata describes a military formation known as Padmavyuha that is laid out in this same pattern.”

“Interesting.” Lena shifted the photo of the coin closer to her. “It’s almost like some fundamental knowledge of this shape was shared among the ancient peoples of the world and became incorporated into their mythology. In Crete, it was the Minotaur’s lair. In India, it was a battle formation.”

“Possibly it represents a real place.” Roland stared down at the journal’s cover. “Either way, I imagine this design had to be important if Father Kircher inscribed it here. So I sought out other examples of the reverend father’s interest in such labyrinths — and found many in this volume.”

The priest laid his palm atop the large copy of Mundus Subterraneus.

Seichan settled to a seat next to Lena. “So who exactly was this priest? I never heard of him.”

Roland smiled as he pulled open the cover of the large book. Gray knew Roland had been summoned to that archaeological site because of his vast knowledge concerning this Jesuit priest. If anyone knew how this all might tie together, it would be this man.

The priest stopped at a page bearing a portrait of a man in a frock and peaked hat.

Roland’s words grew somber with respect. “Father Kircher was considered by many to be the Leonardo da Vinci of his time. He was a true Renaissance man, with a keen interest in many disciplines: biology, medicine, geology, cartography, optics, even engineering. But one of his greatest fascinations was languages. He was the first to realize that there was a direct correlation between ancient Egyptian and the modern Coptic languages used today. For many scholars, Athanasius Kircher was the true founder of Egyptology. In fact, he produced great volumes of work regarding Egyptian hieroglyphics. He came later in life to believe they were the lost language of Adam and Eve and even undertook to carve his own hieroglyphics into a handful of Egyptian obelisks that can be found in Rome.”

Gray’s interest in the man sharpened. He studied the countenance, those thoughtful eyes, flashing back for a moment to his old friend Monsignor Vigor Verona. The two men, though they lived centuries apart, could have been brothers — and perhaps in some respect they were. Both were men of the cloth who sought to understand God’s creation not solely through the pages of the Bible but through exploration of the natural world.

Roland continued, “Father Kircher eventually founded a museum at the Vatican college where he taught and studied. The Museum Kircherianum contained a colossal collection of antiquities, along with a vast library and several of his own inventions. To give you some scope of that place — and of the man’s significance to his time — here’s an etching of that museum.”

Roland returned to his manila folder and slid out another picture.

Gray examined the depiction of that cavernous domed space, all housing the life’s work of one man. He had to admit it did look impressive.

Seichan appeared less stirred. “So how did this Jesuit priest end up in the remote mountains of Croatia?”

Roland gave a small shake of his head. “Actually no one knew he had been up there. From my own doctoral research into Father Kircher’s history, he arrived in our city in the spring of 1669 to oversee the fortifications of Zagreb Cathedral.”

Gray remembered spotting the towering Gothic steeples of that cathedral on their ride into town. They were impossible to miss, as they were the tallest structures of the city.

“Because of the ongoing Ottoman threat during that time,” Roland explained, “massive walls had been built around the cathedral. Father Kircher had been personally summoned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, to help with the engineering of a watchtower along the southern side, intended as a military observation post. But during my research, I found inconsistencies with this story, evidence that the reverend father went missing for weeks at a time while working here. Rumors were rife among the local townspeople that Kircher might have been called by the emperor for some other purpose, that his involvement with the watchtower was merely a story to cover up some ulterior motive.”

“A motive that might not be secret any longer,” Gray said, nodding to the journal. “But even if someone found that cavern full of bones and paintings, why would the emperor call for Father Kircher to investigate?”

“I can’t say for certain, but the reverend father was known for his interest in fossils and the bones of ancient people.” Roland continued to explain as he scanned through several pages of his copy of Mundus Subterraneus. “This work by Father Kircher covers every facet of the earth — from geology and geography to chemistry and physics. Inspiration for this undertaking came when Father Kircher visited Mount Vesuvius, just after it erupted in 1637. He even used ropes to lower himself into the smoking crater to further his understanding of volcanism.”

The guy definitely put himself into his work, Gray had to admit.

“Father Kircher came to believe the earth was riddled by a vast network of underground tunnels, springs, and ocean-size reservoirs. While searching this subterranean world, he also collected thousands of fossils and documented what he found.”

Roland stopped on a page showing the renderings of fossilized fish.

“There are pages and pages of such drawings in here,” Roland added. “But Father Kircher also discovered caves in northern Italy that held massive bones. They were the leg bones of mammoths, but he mistakenly attributed them to a species of giants that roamed the earth alongside early man.”

Roland flipped to a page showing Kircher’s attempt to capture what these mythical giants might look like and their relation in size to regular men.

Roland must have read the amused skepticism on their faces and matched it with a small smile. “Admittedly the reverend father did come to some strange conclusions, but you must understand he was a man of his time, trying to understand the world with the tools and knowledge of that era. Mundus Subterraneus contains many such whimsical speculations, from ancient monsters even to the location of the lost continent of Atlantis.”

Gray straightened and stretched a kink from his back after leaning over the table for so long. He was losing patience. “What does any of this have to do with resolving the mystery of that cavern?”

Roland looked unfazed by his challenge. “Because I know why Father Kircher was summoned to these mountains.”

Gray looked harder at the man, noting the return of that excited sparkle to the priest’s eyes.

Roland shifted over to grasp the metal plate resting on the table and turned it over. Its silvery surface looked freshly cleaned. “This placard was bolted to the outside wall of that cavern chapel.”

Gray noted the lines inscribed across the plate, all written in Latin, with a row of symbols along the bottom. “You were able to translate this?”

Roland nodded. “The message is mostly an admonishment against trespassing into those caves, a crime punishable by death.”

“Why?” Seichan asked. “What did they think they were protecting?”

Roland ran a thumb under one line of Latin and translated it aloud. “ ‘Here rest the bones of Adam, the father of mankind. May he never be disturbed from his eternal slumber…’ ” He took another breath and finished the line. “ ‘. . lest the world come to an end.’ ”

Lena felt a prickling chill at these last words. She had also been staring at the open volume of Mundus Subterraneus, at the page depicting that ancient giant, while remembering the dance of shadows cast upon the cavern walls. Those dark figures had loomed large, climbing high above the herds of painted animals.

As if cast by an army of Kircher’s giants.

Gray spoke, drawing her attention away from the book. “Why would Father Kircher believe those Neanderthal bones came from Adam?”

“Clearly he was mistaken, as with the mammoth bones.” Roland shrugged. “Perhaps he came to that wild conclusion based on the extreme age of the bones. Or maybe it was something else he found. There were those strange petroglyphs, those star-shaped palm prints…”

He looked to Lena for support.

She shook her head, unable to offer any explanation, but it reminded her of another mystery. “What about the other set of remains, the ones that Father Kircher might have removed from the site? Did he think they belonged to Eve?”

“Possibly,” Roland admitted. “But there’s nothing written on this plate about those missing bones.”

“Assuming Kircher believed they were Eve’s remains, why would he take them?” she pressed. “Why not leave them to eternal rest like Adam?”

“I don’t know.” Roland frowned. “At least not yet.”

Seichan reached and tapped the bottom of the metal sign. “What about this line of symbols?”

Lena had noted the faded row of tiny circles, too, showing a gradation of shading along their length. “They look like the phases of the moon. See how there’s twenty-eight of them, the same number as a full lunar cycle.”

“I think Dr. Crandall is right,” Roland said. “I do know that Father Kircher became obsessed with the moon. He believed it was critical not only to the functioning of the earth — as with the ocean’s tides — but also to mankind’s existence. He used telescopes to create intricate maps of the moon, many of which you can find in Mundus Subterraneus.”

As if trying to prove this, Roland thumbed through several pages until he reached a hand-drawn sketch of the lunar surface.

The level of detail for such a time — the impact craters, the mountains, the dry seas — was remarkable. Lena found herself vacillating between respect for this old priest’s work and contempt for some of his more fanciful leaps.

Gray’s gaze remained fixed on the other book. “Kircher clearly was trying to communicate something by leaving his journal behind in that cave full of sculptures.”

Lena agreed, remembering those alcoves crusted with runnels and mounds of calcite. She pictured the broken bits found where the book was hidden. “Father Kircher didn’t just take those bones,” she realized aloud. “He took some object from that other cave, too, and left the book in its place. Possibly like a bread crumb for some future explorer to find.”

“But what does it mean?” Gray asked.

Lena shook her head at the condition of the journal. “Whatever message he intended to leave behind was destroyed long ago.” She nudged the key on the table. “But I wager it was meant to lead to whatever this key unlocks.”

Gray continued to stare at the journal. Lena could almost see the gears turning behind those storm-blue eyes. He finally reached out and placed his fingertip on the date written beneath the labyrinth.

“Sixteen seventy-nine,” he read aloud, then turned to Roland. “Didn’t you say Father Kircher was summoned to Zagreb in 1669?”

The priest moved closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with Gray. “That’s true. I should have caught that discrepancy myself. It means Father Kircher must have returned to the cavern system a decade later — and left that book and key.”

“Why?” Lena asked.

Roland eyed the group. “I don’t know, but Father Kircher died the very next year. Perhaps, like you said, he wanted to leave behind some message for the future before he passed away.”

Lena lifted the key, feeling its heft, the tarnished steel imbued with the weight of centuries. What did this key unlock? What did this Leonardo da Vinci of his time hide away?

Gray took up the journal and carefully cracked it open. He stared at the moldy wad of paper that had once held the last words of this mysterious priest. He studied the moldering imprint of the key, then examined the inside flaps of the covers. His lips suddenly drew thin. He moved closer to the fire, bringing the book near the flames — not to burn it, but for the additional light.

“There’s something inscribed on the inside cover. I can barely make it out.”

Roland joined him, drawing Lena, too.

She stared over Gray’s shoulder. “He’s right,” she murmured, squinting at the faded image of a cross and what appeared to be a pair of upswept wings framing it.

Seichan came to a different conclusion. “Are those flames below the cross?”

Roland fell back a step, his eyes huge. “No, not flames. They’re antlers.”

Antlers?

He gaped at them all. “I know where Father Kircher wants us to go.”

Gray watched Roland abandon the books and ancient messages and cross over to the kitchen’s fridge. He retrieved a chilled bottle of liqueur, returned to the table, and placed it next to the ancient tomes, the key, and the mysterious messages written in Latin.

Seichan reached and rocked the green-tinted bottle to read the German label. “Jägermeister? If we’re going to celebrate, why not break out the sacramental wine?”

“The monsignor likes a sip or two before bed,” Roland explained. “The drink is very popular in Croatia. But it’s not why I’m showing you this.”

He turned the label toward Gray, as if the reason should be obvious.

Gray leaned down and immediately understood. “The symbol…”

The logo on the bottle was a stag with wide antlers embracing a glowing cross.

“The company states that the symbol represents Saint Hubertus, the patron saint of hunters,” Roland explained. “Jägermeisters were German foresters and gamekeepers. Hence, the connection to the liqueur.”

“But what does this have to do with Father Kircher?” Lena asked.

Roland lifted a hand, pleading for patience. “The story of Saint Hubertus pertains to a vision he had while hunting, of a magnificent stag that appeared before him with a golden crucifix standing between its antlers, but many Catholic scholars attribute the story to a saint from half a millennium earlier, Saint Eustace. According to legend, a Roman general named Placidus was hunting a stag near Rome when he had a similar vision and immediately converted to Christianity, changing his name to Eustace.”

“Still,” Gray pressed, “what’s the connection to all of this?”

“In Father Kircher’s later years, as age and decrepitude set in, he retired to the Italian countryside, where during his travels he discovered the ruins of a small church perched above Giovenzano Valley, the Sanctuary of Mentorella. It was built by Emperor Constantine to honor Saint Eustace.”

Gray glanced over to the liqueur bottle and its label.

The patron saint of hunters.

Roland continued, “After discovering this forgotten church in the middle of nowhere, Kircher took it upon himself to restore it, raising funds for the task and eventually overseeing its reconstruction. It is said he was very hands-on, assisting with the engineering and managing the construction site itself, which he kept very guarded.”

“You’re thinking he might have hidden something there,” Gray said.

“According to the historical record, he became obsessed with the place, living his final years there. He even insisted upon being buried at the sanctuary.”

“Was he buried there?” Lena asked.

“Strangely enough, only his heart.” Roland glanced around, letting the significance sink in. “Even a pope back then, Pope Innocent XIII, requested that his heart be buried there, too.”

Something was clearly important about that place.

Gray picked up the old key on the table, running his thumb over the arch of skulls along its bow end, remembering the bones stolen by Father Kircher.

I’d definitely call this a skeleton key.

“It’s worth looking into,” Seichan admitted. He saw the glimmer of desire in her face, to be moving again rather than sitting here waiting for instructions. “We could be in Rome in less than two hours.”

He was tempted — and he wasn’t the only one.

“I’m willing to go,” Roland said, which was no surprise. “You could use my expertise.”

“And I’m going, too,” Lena said, which was a surprise.

Gray was about to object, but Lena stood before the fire, looking resolute.

“Someone stole those bones from that cavern here,” she said. “And we all know it wasn’t because of the black market value of such relics. Especially considering the coordination of the attack here and outside of Atlanta.” Her voice caught a bit as she plainly thought about her sister, but she pressed on. “There has to be some significant genetic value to those bones. I had only a brief look, but I could tell there was something off about the conformation of the skull. If I could get a better look—”

“She’s right.” Roland shifted closer to her, backing her up physically and with his words. “If we could find out where Father Kircher took the other set of bones, we might know better the reason behind the attack. I believe Father Kircher discovered something significant in those caves, and it may take someone with a greater understanding of Neanderthals and early man to discover it again.”

“They’re both right,” Seichan conceded with a shrug. “We’re missing something about all of this. And in the meantime, there’s little we can do to help with Painter’s operation in China.”

Gray refused to relent, even outnumbered as he was now. He had his assignment to keep Lena safe.

The geneticist must have read this thought. “No one would suspect I’d be traveling to Rome,” she pressed. Her eyes now held a similar glint as Seichan’s, a shine of impatience and determination. “Plus I’m not about to sit idly by and do nothing while Maria’s still in danger.”

Before Gray could respond, his satellite phone chirped, ringing with the familiar tone for Sigma command. He answered it and heard Painter Crowe’s voice.

“Commander Pierce, I’ve got your extraction arranged. A contact with the Croatian air force will get you all aboard a military transport headed—”

He cut the director off, eyeing the group standing before the fire. “Sir, there’s been a change in plans.”

The man sat inside a small coffeehouse. He held a folded copy of a newspaper in front of him, but his eyes remained fixed through the window. Across Saint Catherine’s Square stood a Baroque church of the same name, its white facade aglow in the morning sunlight. It was one of dozens of Catholic buildings across the religious city. Even from here, he could spy the twin spires of Zagreb’s Gothic cathedral cutting into the bright sky.

Another two men had been posted at that larger structure, along with others at the international airport and the city’s train station.

The places of Catholic worship were watched because of word that a priest had been among the party who had entered the caves yesterday. It was unknown whether the man or the American woman had ever escaped those mountains, but Zhōngxiào Sun had been adamant that the capital city be locked down, watched for any sign of survivors.

He did not resent the orders. A fire burned in his belly as he remembered his teammates who had died up in those mountains. Their blood called for vengeance.

Movement drew his attention away from the church to a neighboring art gallery. It was too early for the place to be opening already. From a tourist brochure he had read while waiting here, the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery was once the former monastery for Saint Catherine’s. Moments earlier, a black sedan had parked near the entrance. Its engine still idled, with exhaust steaming from the tailpipe.

A clutch of four figures hurried through the gallery door to the waiting sedan. He spotted a woman among them, her blond hair a flag amid the dark clothes. When the passenger door opened, he spotted the driver inside, wearing a Croatian air force uniform.

His heart quickened at the sight, certainty settling coldly over him.

He kept his newspaper raised and picked up his cell phone from the table and tapped one button as he brought it to his ear. Once the connection was made, he spoke.

“Zhōngxiào Sun, I have found them.”

11

The cabin steward leaned down with a tray holding a row of steaming cloths, meticulously folded into cranes. “We’ll be landing in Beijing in less than an hour, if you’d like to freshen up.”

Monk reached over and pinched up one of the napkins, the fingertips of his prosthetic hand registering the damp heat. “Thank you.”

“And for your wife?” the steward extended the tray.

Monk turned to his traveling companion. “Dear?”

“Búyào xièxie,” the woman politely declined, waving a palm in dismissal.

As the steward left, Monk patted his face with the steaming heat, letting it warm away some of his exhaustion.

“Is this how you usually travel?” the woman asked, smiling, lifting her dark eyes and using the back of her fingers to tuck away a fall of ebony hair from her handsome heart-shaped face. “If so, I may have to reconsider Kat’s offer to join your organization.”

He shrugged. “Unfortunately, our more common method of travel is usually tied up in the trunk of a car.”

Kimberly Moy was the same age as Monk, but her beauty had a timelessness that made her appear much younger — which, considering their cover as husband and wife, was not exactly helping.

Still, it made the long trip all that much more tolerable.

Sorry, Kat.

His actual wife was back in D.C., coordinating efforts with Director Crowe at Sigma. Kat had recommended Kimberly Moy for this operation. They’d been friends back in their days at the U.S. Naval Academy. Kimberly eventually joined the Defense Intelligence Agency, but the two remained close allies within that clandestine world of U.S. security. Kat had vouched for her friend’s skills. Beyond the woman’s fluency with every dialect of mainland China, she was also a crack shot with a sniper rifle and experienced at hand-to-hand combat, besting most men in her agency.

Kimberly reclined her seat farther back. “I could get accustomed to this.”

They were aboard a silver-winged Boeing 757, which had been converted by the Four Seasons resorts into a first-class accommodation of just fifty-two seats, only half of which were currently occupied. The itinerary for this semiprivate flight covered eight countries over twenty-four days. Kat had arranged for them to board the plane in Tokyo for the hop to Beijing, supporting their cover as a pair of rich Americans on a world tour.

For the moment, they had the rear of the plane to themselves.

Monk stared down at his satellite phone, which showed a map of China’s coastline. Painter kept the device updated with the most current GPS feed from Baako’s wrist tracker. It looked like the signal had settled at China’s capital, but they were watching to see if it remained in Beijing or moved on yet again.

Monk and Kimberly’s role was as a forward expeditionary force, to narrow down where the kidnappers might have taken Maria, Kowalski, and Baako. An extraction team was already en route, following on their heels via various itineraries, waiting for an order to assemble and attempt a rescue.

Monk’s phone vibrated with a new incoming message. It was from Painter. He scanned through it, beginning to sense the scope of their challenge ahead. The note related all that Sigma had learned about Dr. Amy Wu, the National Science Foundation researcher who had orchestrated that ambush at the primate center. She was clearly a Chinese mole within the NSF, one who had burrowed herself as far as the White House’s science council.

Her motivation for such a betrayal remained murky. Amy Wu was a fourth-generation American, an unlikely target to be co-opted by China’s political ideology. Even a search of her records and correspondence showed no support for communism. Still, Sigma’s financial forensics did reveal a trail of money running from Beijing through Wu’s office and out to various scientific projects.

Makes no sense.

He handed the phone to Kimberly to read through the report. Once done, she gave it back. She kept her voice low, even though there was no one seated within three rows of them, and those nearby were wearing headphones and listening to in-flight entertainment.

“We’ve been monitoring Chinese activity on U.S. shores for decades,” she said quietly. “The infiltration of their moles and spies goes well beyond the nuisance hacking that’s been reported in the news. There are Chinese students in graduate and postdoctoral programs across the United States, in every technological and scientific field. They learn skills here and return to the mainland, where that knowledge is often used against us.”

“Why are we allowing that?”

“Good question. The simplest answer is that we don’t have enough U.S. graduates who are qualified to fill all of our PhD programs. Currently half the physics doctorates from U.S. universities are awarded to foreign nationals, most of whom take their diplomas and return home. In some regard, it could almost be considered foreign aid, as much of their education is underwritten by the American taxpayer — through grants for research, financial assistance, not to mention all the tax breaks given to colleges and universities.”

“So not only are we giving them this knowledge to take abroad, we’re paying for it.”

“Some argue that it may be beneficial in the long run.”

“How’s that?”

“It can serve as a way of spreading American capitalism, business practices, even educational norms abroad. The downside risk, of course, is that we’re creating our own market competitors. Scientists and engineers ultimately drive innovation — and we’re shipping that intellectual capital abroad.”

Monk was beginning to understand why Kat had picked Kimberly for this mission. The woman certainly knew her stuff.

“As an example,” she said, “there was a Chinese student sequestered for years at Harvard, working with the best of our geneticists and bioengineers. She recently returned to Shanghai and took what she’d learned to ends considered unethical in most Western countries.”

“What did she do?”

“She started a program to genetically alter human embryos.” Kimberly leaned back with a sad shake of her head. “Such procedures are already banned in over forty countries — and for good reason. Such research could be construed as a first step on the road to eugenics, using science to engineer a better human. We’re talking about inserting inheritable traits into the human gene pool, not only forever corrupting it, but risking a future where there will be a new class of people — those engineered to be superior.”

Monk frowned. “Do you think such a goal could have motivated this current attack? Amy Wu was channeling funds into the Crandall sisters’ research in the genetic origin of human intelligence.”

“Hard to say. But in regards to Dr. Wu, I do suspect her loyalty was not motivated by political ideology, but by the pure pursuit of science. Research today has become more about seeing if something can be done versus judging if it should. It’s knowledge for the sake of knowledge, regardless of the impact on the world.”

Monk remembered Amy Wu’s earlier comment regarding this subject of genetic engineering: We certainly couldn’t authorize this study using human embryos. Not without raising a firestorm of protests. For her, steering clear of such research wasn’t about the ethics of right or wrong, only about the fear of getting caught.

His phone vibrated again. A glance revealed a new text message from Painter.

Monk returned to the map and zoomed down upon the marked location glowing on the street grid of Beijing. Its path had stopped at a stretch of green parkland.

Leaning over, Kimberly stared down at the screen. “That’s the grounds of the Beijing Zoo.”

Monk nodded. Considering the enemy had a kidnapped gorilla with them, the setting made practical sense.

“What do we do next?” Kimberly asked.

He glanced up at her. “My dear wife, it looks like we’ll be paying a visit to those famous Chinese pandas.”

Maria ducked under the whirling blades of the helicopter. The aircraft had ferried them from a military airfield outside of Beijing to a helipad alongside a wide river. The waterway curved past, overhung by a row of weeping willows. She had watched their approach while they descended, noting the parklands that spread to the south and recognizing cages, pens, and other large buildings. Along a maze of winding walkways, crowds of people roamed and strolled.

An animal park… likely the Beijing Zoo.

Once clear of the helicopter’s rotors, she stretched a kink from her back. Kowalski drew alongside her, his face fixed in a perpetual scowl.

“Place stinks,” he said.

She agreed. The air smelled of exhaust smoke. The city’s skyscrapers across the river were sunk in a hazy yellowish fog. She had read about the air pollution problems in Beijing, but she had never imagined it was this bad. Her eyes already stung, and she had to cover her mouth to mask a deep cough.

“Keep moving,” a voice commanded behind them.

She turned to face the tall, waspish form of the group’s leader. While en route, she had learned his name was Gao, but she didn’t know if that was his first name or last. He looked to be in his midthirties. His black hair was cut to the scalp around his ears but kept longer across the top.

Beyond his shoulders, a small forklift retreated from the rear hatch of the military transport helicopter. It carried aloft the cage holding Baako. He clutched the bars, staring toward her, his eyes scared, his lips pursed as he hooted at her for help, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the aircraft’s engines.

She took a step toward him but was blocked by Gao.

“Go,” he said sternly, reinforcing his command with a pointed pistol.

The same weapon that killed Jack, she reminded herself. Fury at the cold-blooded murder of her student burned inside her chest. One fist balled up in frustration. She fixed her gaze on that bastard, letting him see her anger.

Kowalski gripped her arm and forced her to turn away and keep moving. “Another time,” he grumbled under his breath. It sounded like a promise.

She let herself be led across an apron of concrete. She searched ahead, trying to get her bearings. Off in the distance rose a large arch-roofed building. A giant mural peeked above the tree line, displaying an ocean scene of cavorting seals, killer whales, and dolphins.

An aquarium…

But their destination was closer at hand: a nondescript concrete-block building rising two stories, its flat roof crowded with satellite dishes and antennas. A large door on the side trundled upward, revealing a freight elevator.

The forklift bearing Baako’s cage whisked past them and maneuvered fully into the waiting space. Maria quickened her pace to keep up.

“Not you,” Gao ordered and stepped past her. He pointed toward Kowalski. “You go with gorilla. Keep it calm.”

Kowalski glanced to her. It seemed their ruse that he was Baako’s caretaker continued to remain intact.

To maintain it, she gave Kowalski a small nod. “Do what you can to keep him from getting too frightened.”

He lifted one eyebrow, his question plain. Who, me?

“Baako will need a familiar face, someone he knows,” she pressed.

Even if it’s someone he met only briefly.

But Baako was smart. He knew she trusted Kowalski, and the familiarity of the big man’s presence should offer him a small amount of comfort, especially in such a strange environment. Hopefully Kowalski could keep Baako from panicking. She feared for his care, remembering how their captors had used an electric cattle prod on him. She didn’t want Baako abused any further.

This thought raised a larger fear as she watched his cage being loaded inside the elevator. What did they want with him… or her?

Kowalski must have read the anxiety in her face. “Don’t worry. I’ll look after the little guy.”

Without thinking, she lunged forward and hugged him. His body stiffened in surprise, but then relaxed. His arms encircled her and squeezed, showing a tenderness that belied his brutish exterior. She found the heat of his body, the muscular strength of his embrace, far more reassuring than his words.

“Go!” Gao shouted at them. He poked his pistol into Kowalski’s ribs.

Kowalski let her loose and glowered at Gao, hard enough that the Chinese soldier backed up a step.

Gao shifted his gaze to her instead. “You come with me.”

Another soldier bearing a rifle forced Kowalski toward the freight elevator. Maria was led toward a smaller door to the side.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked Gao.

“To see Major General Lau. To see if you will live.”

How far down are we going?

From the lurch in his stomach, Kowalski knew the elevator was descending underground, but he had no way of gauging how deep. He counted a full fifteen seconds before the car finally settled to a stop. He waited next to Baako’s cage, which was still carried by the forklift. Four armed guards shared the elevator, too many for him to overpower and fight his way free.

Something tugged at his sleeve.

He glanced down to the furry fingers clutching his coveralls. A face pressed against the bars. Dark eyes looked at him.

Yeah, yeah, I know… you’re scared, buddy.

He pulled his arm free as the elevator door rattled open. He didn’t have time for distractions. He needed to concentrate, to learn the lay of the land in this subterranean complex. For any hope of escape, he had to know the way out.

A soft, frightened hoot rose from Baako as the forklift backed free of the elevator and into a cavernous warehouse. The space rose two stories, lined by row after row of shelving. Other forklifts buzzed around the room, hauling crates and boxes.

The tip of a rifle pushed Kowalski out of the elevator and set him to following after Baako’s cage. He did his best to look cowed as he crossed the warehouse. He kept his shoulders slumped while he eyed the shelves for anything that might prove useful, but all of the crates and cartons were labeled in Chinese letters. No telling what each held: could be a crate full of semiautomatic rifles or a box packed with Top Ramen.

Their party exited the warehouse and continued through a maze of passageways, down ramps, and across a musky underground barnyard that held corrals of goats, sheep, and some sullen-looking sows.

What the hell is this place?

As they continued, the number of personnel — mostly wearing lab jackets, uniforms, or work coveralls — slowly waned in number until finally they reached an area bearing angry-looking red signs.

Even Kowalski could guess their meaning.

Restricted Area… Do Not Enter.

Their group pushed onward anyway, encountering no more people. Finally they reached a long cellblock of sorts, lined by a row of barred pens along one side, each the size of a single-car garage. The cages all appeared empty, but from the number of scratches, gouges, and stains in the concrete, they had seen some hard use.

At the far end, massive steel doors stood closed, sealed like a bank vault with a glowing crimson sign above it. One of the guards pointed toward it, but another knocked his arm down and scolded the man. Clearly even curiosity about whatever lay beyond those doors was harshly discouraged.

Kowalski squinted at it.

Interesting…

But it wasn’t their destination. The forklift halted midway along the row of concrete cells, and the driver barked in Chinese. A guard ran forward and unlocked one of the pens, while the forklift operator lowered Baako’s cage to the floor. Two other soldiers moved forward, slipping their rifles over their shoulders and pulling out electric prods. The fourth guard kept his rifle steadied on Kowalski’s chest, but the man kept far enough back in case his captive should try anything.

The soldiers with the prods yelled and stabbed at Baako as he cowered at the rear of the cage. His door was yanked open, and they tried to force Baako into the neighboring pen. Kowalski could only imagine the terror in that trembling form.

“Enough!” he finally yelled. He lifted his arms, showing his empty palms in a pantomime of cooperation. “Let me get him out before you give him a goddamned heart attack.”

Kowalski didn’t know if any of his captors spoke English, but he made his intent clear by slowly stepping to the open door of Baako’s cage and waving the furry guy toward him.

“It’s okay, Baako,” he said. “We’ll do this together.”

Whether the soldiers understood him or not, they gave him some space.

Kowalski leaned through the door. Baako panted heavily, his lips thin with terror, his gaze darting everywhere. He looked one breath away from a total meltdown.

Kowalski patted his own chest. Look at me, buddy.

Baako’s eyes settled in his direction.

Kowalski lifted his arms and began to sign slowly, appealing to Baako’s prior teaching, to use the familiar to draw him away from the edge of blind panic. He ended by crossing his fists and tapping them together at the wrist.

[I will protect you]

Baako continued to breathe hard, but his gaze steadied. He loosened his arms from where they were hugging his hairy knees and bumped his own fists together, grunting softly.

Kowalski nodded. “That’s right.”

Baako reached out a hand toward him. Kowalski momentarily flashed to his younger sister, Anne. She had often reached out to him like this, sought comfort from her older brother whenever she was scared, whether at a doctor’s office or during one of his father’s drunken rages.

Warm fingers wrapped around his.

That’s it, buddy.

Kowalski guided Baako off the forklift, down to the floor, and over to the concrete pen. From one cage to another.

One of the guards barked at them. Fingers tightened to a crushing level on Kowalski’s hand. He gritted through the pain and waved his free hand at the group of soldiers.

“Just get the hell back!” he scolded as he walked Baako into the pen.

It was a pitiful confinement. The concrete floor was covered by a skim of scattered straw. A bucket in the corner was half full of greenish water. There were no toys to play with, no ropes to swing from, nothing to distract from the grim surroundings. Worst of all, a set of steel manacles hung ominously from the rear wall.

A guard called to him, softer at least this time. The man waved, ordering him out.

Kowalski stared down at the fingers still holding tight to him.

Fuck it.

He sank to his rear end on the cold concrete and patted the straw next to him, urging Baako to join him, then called to the soldier, “I’m staying.”

Better here than anywhere else.

The soldier huddled with his comrades; then they seemed to reach some consensus. One of them picked up a woven bushel that held bundles of bruised bananas, carrots, and branches of leaves. He dropped it across the threshold, then kicked it closer to them. Another soldier clanged the door closed and locked it with a large key.

“Guess they got the message,” Kowalski mumbled to himself.

The forklift reversed away, drawing the soldiers along with it. A set of double doors was slammed closed behind them as they retreated out of the cellblock, but not before Kowalski spotted one of the soldiers taking up a post outside.

So they’re not taking any chances with their new prisoners.

Kowalski freed his hand from Baako’s fingers and stood back up. He glanced to the other end of the hall, toward that sealed steel vault. He noted a palm reader glowing beside it, and a row of cameras hanging along the roof outside the cages, their lenses pointed toward the pens.

Baako also used the opportunity to take in his surroundings, sniffing at the air. Then he lowered his nose closer to a dark stain beneath the straw. Whatever he smelled caused him to retreat away.

Kowalski didn’t blame him. It looked like dried blood.

To distract Baako, Kowalski hauled up the bushel of food and joined the ape. “Not exactly pizza and beer, but it’ll have to do.”

He lowered the container, pulled out a banana, and offered it. Baako sank to his haunches, turning a shoulder, refusing. The ape hadn’t eaten since he was captured. Maria had gotten him to drink a little, but that was about it.

“You gotta eat,” Kowalski said.

Baako turned back and touched his lips, his eyes still scared.

Crap, forgot about that tracker band…

Kowalski shifted to put himself between the cameras and Baako. He held out his hand. “It’s okay. Spit it out.”

Baako understood enough to obey. The saliva-soaked band dropped into his palm. Keeping his back to the cameras, Kowalski examined it. The green light that normally glowed from the GPS unit was barely lit. It was running out of juice.

Not that it’s doing any good buried under all of this concrete anyway.

Kowalski swore under his breath.

Baako chuffed worriedly, ducking his head lower, perhaps believing Kowalski was mad at him.

“It’s not you, buddy.” He pocketed the tracker away, forgetting about it for now. At this moment, he had a more immediate concern. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

He held out the banana again but only got a forlorn look from his cellmate. His sister, Anne, had often made a similar face when he tried to get her to eat. Sometimes her anorexia was secondary to pain, but more often than not it was a reflection of her brother’s pitiful attempt at cooking.

Kowalski dropped down next to Baako. He put the banana on his lap, then lifted his arms to the side, balling his fists and flexing his biceps.

[You must be strong]

He repeated the sign, altering it slightly, by forming claws of his hands, then clenching them into fists.

[And brave]

He finally pinched his fingers and brought them to his closed lips.

[So you must eat]

Baako looked at the banana. Kowalski picked it up, peeled it, and offered it again.

Baako finally reached over and took it. He put the peeled end between his lips, then mimicked Kowalski’s first sign, raising his fists and flexing his arms. He finished by pointing at Kowalski.

[You be strong, too]

Baako bit through the banana and held out the other half.

Grimacing, Kowalski stared down at what was offered, then simply shrugged.

What the hell…

He took the banana, peeled it the rest of the way, and popped it in his mouth.

A guy’s gotta eat.

Where are they taking me?

Fearing what lay ahead, Maria moved through an opulent hallway. The walls were covered in a crimson silk print, the lintels of the windows gilded in gold. Underfoot was a handwoven rug that looked like a tapestry.

Where am I?

After being separated from Kowalski and Baako, she had been taken down an elevator by Gao to a subterranean complex beneath the park, where another soldier met them with an electric vehicle and drove them through the underground facility. As they were swept along, she had caught glimpses through windows into large laboratories. She recognized equipment used in genetic research: thermocyclers for amplifying DNA, hybridization ovens for incubating nucleotide probes, centrifuges for the fractionation of macromolecules. One room even had a SequiGene Vertical Gel Apparatus, identical to her own at her lab, used for sequencing DNA.

Finally they reached another elevator, and Gao forced her at gunpoint into the cage, which rose up into this older building. From the scrolled woodwork and antique furnishings of this structure, it felt as if she had been transported from the modern age to the seventeenth century. Along the length of the hallway, small windows offered views down to a lagoon holding flocks of wading birds, and beyond the trees, the rest of the animal park.

So I’m still on the zoo property.

Ahead, a man stood post before a closed door, dressed in a khaki uniform and tall black boots. Though several years older than her, he was handsome in a roguish way, a feature magnified by his warm smile as he greeted them — or rather, greeted her companion.

“Gao, huānyíng huí jiā, dìdi.”

Gao holstered his pistol and hugged the other. “Xiè xie, Chang.”

From the informal and affectionate embrace, she guessed they were brothers, recognizing now the family resemblance. As they continued speaking in hushed tones, she noted the subtle deference of Gao to his older brother — not just because of the age difference, but likely also because his brother had a higher rank.

Finally the senior brother — Chang — knocked on the door, got a muffled response, and opened it. Chang entered first, then Gao pushed her forward to follow.

She remembered Gao’s earlier warning about where she was being taken.

To see Major General Lau. To see if you will live.

Maria had been expecting to be interrogated by some stoic-faced older member of the Chinese Army. Instead, as she stepped in the room, she found a thin woman in a starched green uniform standing behind a broad desk. She had a chestful of colorful ribbons and the epaulets of her jacket carried two stars. From her gray hair and the lines on her face, Maria guessed her to be in her midfifties.

And the woman was not alone.

Two older men — neither of them Chinese — also shared the space, seated on a neighboring sofa. In addition, two armed guards flanked the broad window behind the general’s desk.

The older of the two men rose to his feet. Confusion and shock registered in his eyes as he fixed his glasses more firmly to his face and studied her up and down.

“Lena?”

Maria had grown accustomed to this confusion and corrected the man. “Lena is my twin sister… I’m Maria.”

“Of course, of course,” the man said, sinking back down, looking abashed at his mistake.

She didn’t need to hear his British accent to know this must be Professor Alex Wrightson, the geologist who had discovered the cavern system in Croatia. Monk had shown her pictures of the two kidnapped researchers back at the primate center. The other was plainly the French paleontologist, Dr. Dayne Arnaud. Though he was a couple of decades younger than the geologist, at the moment he looked as haggard and aged.

The woman stepped around her desk. “Dr. Crandall, I’m a great admirer of your work. I am Jiaying Lau, major general of the People’s Liberation Army.”

The general held out her hand. Maria took it, not wanting to be rude to the woman who would decide her fate.

Jiaying’s gaze shifted next to Gao and his older brother. She said something swiftly in Mandarin and pointed back toward the door. Chang voiced some objection, looking perturbed, but he was overruled by his superior. He left stiffly with Gao in tow.

Witnessing their irritation, Maria felt incrementally warmer toward her host.

Still, Maria cleared her throat and took the offensive. She kept her back straight and her voice firm. “How do you know about my work?”

Jiaying waved her to a chair opposite the sofa. “Who do you think financed your research?”

The shock more than the invitation dropped Maria heavily into the seat. “What… what do you mean?”

“Your advocate with the National Science Foundation, the woman who sat on the White House’s science council and helped you and your sister with your research grants—”

“Amy…”

Jiaying bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Dr. Wu was well paid to facilitate the flow of money from the Academy of Military Science here in Beijing to your primate center in the United States. It was a shame to lose her.”

Lose her?

Maria tried to keep her face dispassionate while her mind did cartwheels trying to absorb all she was being told. If this story was true, it meant she and Lena had been working for the Chinese all along. They were puppets whose strings were being pulled by Amy Wu.

How could that be?

Maria had considered Amy a friend. But instead, the woman was some sort of mole. As her breathing grew more labored, Maria wanted to lower her head between her knees. She remembered how hard Amy had pushed her and Lena, driving them to work faster, to set aside their initial misgivings about producing a gorilla hybrid model to test their theories.

Maria had always harbored a distaste at the idea of using great apes in research. She’d had heated debates with Amy on this very subject. Apes were intelligent animals with a rich emotional and cognitive life. They showed self-consciousness, with an ability to understand their individual role in the past and future. What right did humans have to imprison them and torture them in the name of science?

Still, in the end, Amy had found ways to persuade her, to allay her concerns, to wheedle her into pushing past the boundaries of her own comfort.

Yet look what I did.

Deep down, Maria knew Amy was not fully to blame. She had let herself be won over because she had wanted to know the truth herself, to prove her hypothesis concerning the Great Leap Forward. But most of all, she had wanted to see if she could succeed where so many others had failed.

Including the Chinese.

She and Lena had developed innovative hybridization and germ-line engineering techniques that were still unpublished and proprietary. Not even Amy had been fully informed.

Thank God.

Maria began to understand why she had been kidnapped, but such techniques were more Lena’s specialty than hers. Her sister was the technical expert, dealing with this project at the molecular level. Maria’s role was more about tackling the bigger picture: the raising, educating, and testing of Baako.

“We hope you’ll be willing to continue your research here,” Jiaying said, confirming Maria’s fears. “I understand your distaste for our methods in bringing you and your test subject to our shores. But we’re both scientists, searching for the truth. Ultimately, what does it matter if your research is conducted here or in the States? If you cooperate, you could have a wonderful life, with the full resources of the Chinese government at your disposal, with none of the red tape or ethical limitations that bound your hands in the United States.”

Maria tried to look interested instead of horrified.

“Of course,” Jiaying added, “this applies to your sister, too.”

“Lena?”

Before Maria had been kidnapped, she had been awaiting word from Croatia about a search-and-rescue effort to extract her sister from some flooded caves. She had heard nothing after that.

“Is… is she still alive?” Maria gasped out.

“She has been spotted in Zagreb,” Jiaying confirmed. “We hope to facilitate a reunion of you and your sister soon.”

Maria clutched her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. She glanced to the two men.

Professor Wrightson offered her a wan smile. “As long as she’s still alive, there’s always hope.”

Dr. Arnaud would not meet her gaze, clearly not as optimistic.

Maria sought to change the subject. “Why did you raid those caves to begin with? Was it just to grab my sister?”

“Actually we had intended to extract her in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute. But due to foul weather, she ended up leaving a day earlier than expected. Such are the whims of fate, spoiling the best-laid strategies.”

“Then what did you want out of those caves?”

“Let me show you.”

Jiaying encouraged her to cross over to a long plastic transport case resting beside the sofa. The latches were already undone, so the general merely flipped open the lid. Maria stared inside. She immediately recognized the fossilized remains of a skeleton nestled inside. Despite her heart thudding in her throat, she could not discount a spark of professional interest.

She dropped to a knee to better examine the skull, amazed at the preservation. “These bones, they’re not human… or rather not Homo sapiens.”

“Neanderthal,” Wrightson corrected her.

Frowning, she reached a finger toward the brow ridge. “No, I don’t think so. At least not completely. The facial bones are too flat. And what I can make of the molars, they appear too small.”

She glanced up to find Jiaying smiling at her.

But it was Dayne Arnaud who spoke, the paleontologist’s tone mournful. “I noted the same. And after taking meticulous measurements, I believe we’re dealing with the remains of a hybrid, some offspring very close to the original mating of an anatomically modern human and a Neanderthal.”

Maria sat back on her heels. “If you’re right—”

“It would be the first ever discovered,” Arnaud finished. “A specimen of astounding rarity, found in immaculée condition. Professor Wrightson radiocarbon-dated the remains to the last glacial period, around forty thousand years ago.”

The geologist nodded. “But what’s most intriguing are the contradictions regarding—”

“Enough, Alex,” Arnaud cut him off sharply. “No one cares about such anomalous details.”

Wrightson looked ready to object, but instead settled back and crossed his arms. Clearly the two researchers were accustomed to bumping heads.

Arnaud closed his eyes, then opened them, plainly trying to regain his composure. “It was because of this miraculous find that I reached out to the Max Planck Institute. And why I specifically requested your sister come to Croatia.”

“Because of our research on Neanderthal hybridization,” Maria said.

The paleontologist nodded. “I believed at the right facility there would be a great chance of extracting substantial DNA and wanted her expertise.”

Maria understood. Such a discovery could unlock everything, offering a road map to what humans were as a species, to where we came from.

If Lena and I had such a sample…

Jiaying drew her attention away from the scientific potential and back to the immediate threat. “We learned of Dr. Arnaud’s discovery through one of our operatives already studying at Max Planck and acted quickly. Perhaps too hastily.”

Maria gave a small shake of her head at the efficiency of the Chinese system of moles and spies. She knew Chinese students were enrolled at technical universities across the United States and abroad, but apparently many of them also had their ears to the ground, ready to alert the powers that be of any significant discovery.

Jiaying continued, “Such a boon as this could shorten our own research by a full decade, if not more. Especially with the right team in place.”

She bowed her head toward Maria and the others.

Maria stood. “What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?”

“Better I show you.”

Jiaying waved her toward the door. The two men also stood to follow.

Wrightson rose with a groan, palming his lower back. “No rest for the wicked.”

Arnaud pushed past him gruffly.

“I hope to enlist your cooperation,” Jiaying told Maria. “And Dr. Arnaud, your expertise as a paleontologist could also prove beneficial. But Professor Wrightson, we have little need for a geologist, even one of your esteem. But maybe you can serve in another capacity.”

The old man looked baffled.

Jiaying removed her sidearm, pointed it at Wrightson, and fired.

The puzzlement never left the geologist’s face as he collapsed back onto the sofa, a small hole smoking in his forehead.

The sudden blast in the small space deafened Maria. She stumbled backward, close to falling, but Jiaying kept her upright by gripping her arm. Maria looked aghast at the Chinese general, immediately realizing the intent behind Jiaying’s brutal action.

It was a lesson.

Maria understood.

Be useful… or be dead.

12

Gray drove their Mercedes SUV up another switchback into the Prenestini Mountains. Though it had taken them only an hour to travel from Rome’s airport to these highlands, it was like entering another era. The bustle of Rome had fallen behind them as they climbed into the farmlands and vineyards of rural Italy.

Seated behind him, Lena Crandall had her window rolled down, taking in the fresh warm air of this spring day, but her eyes remained haunted, concerned for her sister. Upon arriving in Italy, they had received word that the GPS tracker being monitored by Sigma had finally died, placing the last known location of Lena’s sister somewhere in Beijing. Monk had just landed to continue the search for the kidnapped group.

In the meantime, Gray’s party had their own quest.

Father Roland sat in the backseat next to Lena. He had his nose buried in a small tourist guide, while balancing an iPad on his knee — where he had stored all of his information concerning Father Athanasius Kircher. The priest had purchased the booklet when they made a short stop at the village of Guadagnolo for lunch, dining at Ristorante da Peppe, a quaint family-run establishment with a roaring fireplace that was overhung with strings of handmade sausages. Roland had also used the time to make inquiries with the local diners concerning their destination: Santuario della Mentorella.

The Catholic sanctuary — the ruins of which had been discovered and restored by Father Kircher — lay at the neighboring summit of Mount Guadagnolo. It was perched like an eagle’s nest a few kilometers higher up the peak, clinging to a spur of rock overlooking the surrounding Giovenzano Valley. Legend stated that it was upon that spur that Saint Eustace had his vision of a stag bearing aloft a glowing cross between his antlers.

Gray pictured the faded drawing in Father Kircher’s journal.

Let’s hope this isn’t all a wild-goose chase.

As he finished the final switchback, a cluster of stone buildings with clay tile roofs appeared ahead, crowning the top of the peak. He passed a traffic sign written in Polish, Italian, and English.

Seichan, who was seated in the passenger seat with an elbow out the window, frowned at the sign. “Why is so much around here written in Polish?”

She was right. Even in that small village where they’d stopped for lunch, there had been a bookstore with a prominent display of Polish books.

Roland explained, “Back in 1857, Pope Pius XI granted this church to the Congregation of the Resurrection — a Polish order. But what’s interesting is that Pope John Paul II often visited this shrine, even coming here immediately after his election to the papacy. As did his successor, Pope Benedict.”

“So Father Kircher left his heart here,” Gray commented. “As did a pope from back then. And now the popes of our time make this place their first pilgrimage. Definitely sounds like there’s something important about this place.”

Roland raised his tourist guide. “It also says here that the holy relics of over two hundred saints are interred at this sanctuary.”

Lena turned from the window, clearly drawn by this strange fact. “Why so many?”

“Probably because most people believe this church to be the oldest Marian sanctuary in the world.”

Lena scrunched her brow. “Marian sanctuary?”

“It’s a site dedicated to the Madonna, to the Virgin Mary,” Roland explained. “The shrine dates back to when Emperor Constantine first founded it, some time in the fourth century. The Benedictine order oversaw this place for almost a thousand years before it finally fell into disrepair. In fact, it’s believed Saint Benedict spent time here in seclusion and prayer, living inside a cave just steps from the sanctuary’s church. You can still visit that grotto.”

“I think I’ve had enough with caves for a while,” Lena said, which earned a rare snort of amusement from Seichan.

Gray drove the last length of the winding road, passing a small cemetery, to park in a nearly empty lot next to a convent. The sanctuary’s church sat nearby. Its nondescript Romanesque facade hinted little at the significance of the site. Above the simple wooden doors, a rosette-shaped window reflected the sunlight, while below stood a bronze statue of a pope, with an upraised arm in blessing.

“This is the place?” Lena asked, sounding disappointed.

Gray climbed out and surveyed their surroundings. Whatever this church lacked in grandeur, the view from the rocky spur made up for it. The sweep of mountains faded into the distance to the north and south, while to the east, a wide valley opened, dropping far below in cliffs and forests to distant tilled fields.

The others joined him.

“We should check out the church first,” Roland said. “The nuns here are likely to know more about the mysteries of this place than we’ll find in any tourist guide.”

The priest marched toward the door, adjusting his white Roman collar. Gray followed with the two women, letting Roland take the lead. If anyone could pry secrets out of a local nun, it would be a priest of the same faith.

With the sun directly overhead, the day proved to be warm and bright, fading the cold and stormy mountains of Croatia into a distant memory. Still, Seichan kept a wary watch on their surroundings, glancing frequently toward the lone road that led up here. When they reached the church door, she hung back.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“The approach here…” She narrowed her eyes. “There’s only one way up or down.”

That was true. They were isolated up on this peak. It would be easy to get pinned down here. After Croatia, he didn’t blame her suspicions. He shifted his light jacket, feeling the weight of his SIG Sauer holstered at his shoulder.

She noted the small movement, meeting his eyes. “I’ll stay out here. Let you all poke around on your own.”

He appreciated her caution. While there was no evidence they had been followed, why take any chances? He touched her hand, thanking her. His fingers brushed along the inside of her wrist, remembering kissing that tender flesh — but now he felt the steel hilt of a sheathed dagger hidden under her cuff. It reminded him of the true nature of the woman he loved, that mix of tenderness and steel.

That was Seichan.

Roland tugged open the door to the church.

“Get to work,” Seichan whispered throatily to Gray. The smoldering emerald of her eyes held both a challenge and a threat: Don’t leave me waiting for too long. Who knows what mischief I’ll get into?

As Roland entered the church, he dipped his fingers into the font just inside the door and whispered a small prayer. He dabbed himself with holy water in the sign of the cross. As usual, he felt reverence and awe upon stepping into a house of God. Even the soft fragrance of old incense greeted him like a dear friend, blended with the vanilla-scented smoke from votive candles.

While the sanctuary appeared drab on the outside, inside, the white plaster walls seemed awash with sacredness, arcing high into Gothic buttresses. Wooden pews led toward the altar, while on a landing overhead rose a magnificent eighteenth-century pipe organ. To the side, a few windows shone with stained glass, illuminating centuries-old frescoes and paintings. But it was the main altar that held the true treasure of the Sanctuary of Mentorella.

In an alcove behind the altar rested a large wooden statue of the Madonna. It dated back to the twelfth century, a carving of Mary seated on a throne, cradling the infant Jesus. Both she and the child wore crowns embedded with gems and pearls. Tall bronze lamps flanked the figure, illuminating it, making the sculpture appear to glow from within, as if the wood itself was suffused with holiness.

He headed toward it, drawn by its beauty.

Lena broke the spell as she spoke behind him. “Where do we even begin this search?”

His feet slowed, reminded of the task at hand: to hunt for what Father Kircher had removed from those caves. He allowed Lena and Gray to draw abreast of him in the center of the nave. He searched around, noting how few people were here. A pair of tourists — a husband and wife — made a slow ambulation along the perimeter of the pews, where a lone elderly woman, her hair tied in a scarf, knelt with her head bowed in prayer.

The only other person present was a woman in a black nun’s habit. She stood to the side of the altar with her arms crossed, her hands hidden inside her sleeves. Considering the age of this convent, he would have expected to find an old nun in attendance, but instead the woman appeared no older than her twenties. Her hair was tucked and hidden under her wimple, but her bright blue eyes sparked with youth. Her gaze flicked to his Roman collar and gave a demure bow of her head, acknowledging his station.

“Let’s see if she can help us,” Roland said and continued between the pews toward the altar.

“Dzie dobry,” she greeted them in Polish, then repeated in Italian. “Buongiorno.”

He smiled at her attempt to accommodate all visitors — or at least those that must drop in here the most often. “Lei parla inglese?” he asked in Italian.

“Of course, Father, most certainly,” she said, her Polish accent still present. “In fact, I spent two years in Atlantic City. As a blackjack dealer.”

Roland laughed. “Not exactly the usual path to serving our Lord.”

She offered a shy grin, her gaze dropping in embarrassment. “It was a good job, paid well, and it let me see more of the world.”

“I understand,” he said, encouraging her with a warm smile as he made their introductions. “And may I ask your name?”

“Sister Clara.”

“Excellent. Sister Clara, we were hoping you might help us.”

“In any way I can, Father.”

“We’ve traveled all the way from Croatia to study more about this sanctuary. We’re specifically interested in information about the priest who oversaw its reconstruction in the seventeenth century.”

“You mean Father Kircher.”

Roland felt a measure of shock, but then realized any nun here would certainly know this place’s history in detail.

“Yes, precisely,” he answered. “I teach at a Catholic university in Zagreb and did my doctoral thesis on the reverend father. I came here to learn more about his later years, to discover why he became so focused on rebuilding this sanctuary, specifically why he took such a personal involvement. I had hoped that perhaps you and your sisters might know more than could be found in any textbook.”

“Even if it’s just legend or rumor,” Gray added. “Anything that might direct us to discovering more about his work here.”

Sister Clara pointed to the marble floor in front of the altar. “We can perhaps start right here. Father Kircher’s heart is buried at the foot of this altar, per his request to the pope. He wanted the grace of the Madonna to always be shining upon him.”

Lena spoke up. “So Father Kircher was obsessed with the Virgin Mary.”

“Revered, I believe is more accurate. It was why he petitioned to rebuild this sanctuary. Because it was the oldest site of worship for the Holy Mother.”

Roland glanced quizzically at Lena, seeing some glimmer of realization shining in her eyes. He pulled her and Gray aside and asked softly, “Lena, what are you thinking?”

“Eve was a woman, the mother of us all,” she whispered. “If Father Kircher was seeking a place to venerate her, too…”

This would be the perfect place to inter her bones.

“But if you’re right, how might he have hidden such a grave? How would he have marked it?”

Gray offered a solution. “Didn’t you mention that Father Kircher had a great fascination with hieroglyphics, that he even carved some of his own symbols into ancient Egyptian obelisks?”

“That’s correct, but what does that have to do—”

Gray pressed on. “And didn’t he come to believe that hieroglyphics might be the lost language of Adam and Eve?”

Shock and possibility widened in Roland’s eyes. He looked upon the American with more respect.

“Let’s find out,” he said and crossed back to Clara. “Sister, when the reverend father oversaw the reconstruction here, I understand that he laid some of the bricks himself and also had a hand in restoring the artwork and ornamentation.”

“That’s true.”

“Fascinating. And I know this may sound odd. But is there anywhere on these grounds where he might have had hieroglyphics inscribed as decoration?”

Clara’s brows rose in surprise. “As a matter of fact, yes, Father.” She turned to a side door to the church. “Up in the Chapel of Saint Eustace. I can direct you there if you’d like.”

Roland inclined his head, trying to keep calm. “We’d be most grateful.”

She led them past the altar to a small wooden door and held it ajar for them. Sunlight streamed inside from a small courtyard behind the church. A crushed gravel path led through a wild garden of olive trees and rosebushes, set among a scatter of marble statuary.

“If you follow this path,” she instructed, “it will take you to a fork. To the left, steps lead down to Saint Benedict’s cave, but to the right, you’ll find the Scala Santa, the Holy Ladder. Those set of marble steps climb up to the Chapel of Saint Eustace.”

Gray headed out first, nodding to Clara. “Thank you, Sister.”

Clara stopped Roland with a touch on his arm before he left. “You asked about legends concerning Father Kircher.” She nodded in the direction of the solitary chapel sitting at the highest point of the summit. “It is said that Father Kircher worked on that building with a single mason. The only other person he ever allowed up there during its construction was a friend, a bishop named Nicolas Steno. According to our records, Bishop Steno and Father Kircher spent much time together here, and in fact it was the bishop who carried Kircher’s heart to the Sanctuary of Mentorella upon the reverend father’s death.”

“That’s indeed most interesting,” Roland said. “Thank you, Sister.”

With a small smile, she bowed her head, retreated back inside, and shut the door.

As he headed after Gray, Lena kept alongside him. “What was that about?”

“Maybe nothing, but I came across the name Nicolas Steno during my studies of Father Kircher. He was a Danish scientist, several decades younger than Father Kircher. They worked in the same circles and became close friends. But what’s most interesting is that Steno’s field of study was what would be called paleontology today. The study of fossils, old bones, et cetera.”

“You’re thinking if Father Kircher took possession of what he considered Eve’s remains that he might have involved his friend.”

They reached the fork in the path and met up with Gray. Roland pointed to the steep stone staircase winding up to the right. “From Sister Clara’s account, it sounded like those two men were up to something secret involving that chapel.”

Gray had stopped to study the other path, the one that led down to a cliff face with a dark vertical cut in it. “That must be the famous grotto.” He pointed to a glass-enclosed shrine at its entrance, full of a jumble of skulls and bones. “But what’s that?”

“An ossuary,” he explained. “According to the guidebook, it holds the relics of monks and friars who once served here. The inscription on its marble pedestal reads: Remember: what you are, we were. What we are, you will become.”

“True, I guess, but definitely morbid.” Gray turned toward the flight of marble steps and headed up.

Lena followed but glanced back at the ossuary. “Let’s just hope we don’t become that anytime soon.”

Roland smiled. That was also true.

Gray led them up the precariously steep ascent of the Scala Santa. Underfoot, the steps were made of white marble, worn smooth by the passage of many sandals, boots, and shoes over the ages. A low wall on the left was all that kept climbers from a fall down the cliff on that side.

“I can see why they call this a Holy Ladder,” Lena commented, huffing from the effort.

Roland wheezed, “It’s meant both as a challenge and to humble those pilgrims seeking to reach the chapel.”

“Certainly does its job.”

Roland stared up as he climbed, shading his eyes with a palm. The small tile-roofed chapel looked austere and simple silhouetted against the blue sky, clinging to the spur overlooking the next valley. Four arched windows faced each of the cardinal directions.

Roland found himself winded by the time he reached its door. He stopped to catch his breath, taking in the panorama of white rocky cliffs and fir-covered slopes. A slight breeze carried the fresh scent of pine. He finally faced the door of the chapel, feeling a flicker of unease.

What had Father Kircher hidden here… and why?

Lena followed Roland across the threshold into the shadows of the small chapel. After such a difficult climb, she had expected to discover something grand and stately, but the interior was spartan. The only adornment was a small marble altar on the far side, holding a scatter of guttered candles below a simple stone crucifix. The room was little larger than a two-car garage, with arched windows open to views in all directions.

Roland stared up at the roof, at the crisscrossing of stone arches above. “This is the same pattern of brickwork we saw in that chapel in the caverns.”

He was right, which made her wonder. If that cavern chapel had been built to inter the bones of a Neanderthal male, was this same construction some clue about what had been done with the female’s remains?

Roland searched around. “Sister Clara said there were hieroglyphics to be found up here.”

Gray stalked along the perimeter of the room, running his fingers along the walls below the windows, peering closely. “All of these bricks are faintly inscribed with writing. They circle the room, row by row. The topmost appears to be Latin. Below that is Greek.”

Lena joined him as he dropped to a knee.

“This next level is carved with Chinese characters.” Gray glanced back at them. “And at the very bottom are strips of Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

Roland crouched down. “It’s almost like he layered them by age. Going back in time.”

Lena ran her fingertips along that bottommost level, examining the carving, impressed by Father Kircher’s ability to mimic this writing. She worked around the walls, studying the triple lines of hieroglyphics that ran along the walls near the floor.

Roland crawled beside her. “One of Father Kircher’s greatest published works was a three-volume epic titled Oedipus Aegyptiacus. It was his major treatise on Egypt, hieroglyphics, and ancient knowledge. He merged Greek myths, Pythagorean mathematics, Arab astrology, biblical accounts, and even alchemy, all in an attempt to comprehend the universal source of all knowledge.”

“Like some grand unifying theory of intelligence,” Lena said.

Roland nodded.

Lena felt a sudden kinship with this historical figure. Maria and I were researching the same, to discover the true source of human intelligence.

Gray scanned the ribbons of hieroglyphics. “Can you translate any of this?”

Roland frowned. “It’s likely all meaningless. Father Kircher believed he had a discovered a way to decipher hieroglyphics, but in the end, he was deceiving himself.”

“Then what do we hope to gain from all of this?” Lena asked.

With no answer apparent, silence settled over them.

After a few minutes, she was about to admit defeat when Gray stirred. He shifted closer to one section of the wall. “Look over here. In the middle row, at this pair of antelopes. Notice the one on the right with the raised horns.”

He rubbed his thumb there to better reveal a pinkie-sized divot centered between the horns. He glanced back at them. “It’s almost like a hieroglyphic representation of Saint Eustace’s symbol. The stag’s antlers and the cross.”

“Like what we found drawn in the back of Kircher’s old journal,” Lena said, leaning closer. “But what does it mean?”

Gray pivoted to face her and held out his hand. “Can I see that key you found?”

Lena understood and fished it out of her pocket, then handed it to him.

Gray positioned the tip of the key near the indented mark between the horns. It appeared to be the same diameter. “Notice how there’s a half inch of clean rod at the end of the key, almost like a steel punch.”

Roland looked doubtful. “You’re thinking of using it to unplug this hole.”

Gray took out a pen and dug at the divot. “There’s definitely looser material packed in here.” He rubbed at some of the debris generated between his fingers. “Fine sand and maybe wax.”

Roland swallowed and rubbed his chin. “Try it.”

Gray shifted around, positioned the key’s tip into place, then used the heel of his hand to strike a hard blow. With a grating of stone, the key sank to the level of its first toothed bit. He pulled it back out, then blew at the newly created hole.

“I think that did it,” he said. “The impact even broke away part of a vertical slot along the bottom. Looks like it would accommodate the protruding teeth of the key.”

To make sure, Gray slipped a dagger from a boot sheath and used its sharp point to clean out the slot. Once satisfied, he tested it with the key. He had to push and prod — then finally it sank fully away, teeth and all, coming to a stop at the skull-adorned crown of the key.

Gray gave them both a questioning look.

Surely this lock won’t work after so many centuries, Lena thought.

“Do it,” Roland instructed, his eyes shining with hope. “Beyond studying lost languages, Father Kircher was a master engineer, concocting all sorts of mechanical devices from magnetic clocks to windup automatons. He even had statues at his museum in Rome that would talk, amplifying the voices of someone in another room.”

Given the okay by the priest, Gray tightened his grip on the head of the key and gave it a firm twist.

Lena held her breath, not sure what to expect.

A jarring clank echoed from the wall. Then a large marble slab at the foot of the chapel’s altar dropped away, swinging on hidden hinges to form a ramp leading down. A waft of rock dust blew up from below.

Lena stood but kept warily back from the hole. Roland stepped to her side as Gray removed the key and joined them.

The ramp led to a shadowy set of stairs hidden under the altar. They looked hewn out of the mountain bedrock, descending steeply away.

“It’s almost like a dark mirror of the Holy Ladder outside,” Roland whispered.

Lena had a larger concern.

But where does it lead?

Seichan kept in the shadows of the convent walls. The midday sun hung in an achingly blue sky. She watched a hawk slowly circle on the thermals rising from the warming mountains. The air smelled of fresh pine, along with a hint of rosemary from the convent’s nearby gardens. She could faintly hear voices of the nuns inside the building, their words rising and falling in a prayerful cadence.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to live a life of such seclusion and isolation, to be at peace with oneself and one’s god. Her upbringing had been full of terror and desperation as she scrabbled for life in the slums of Southeast Asia. From there, she had been recruited, trained in a brutal manner to grind away the little humanity that was left in her. Only lately had she come to reconcile her past, to set herself on a path to right the wrongs she had committed and to find a semblance of peace.

A peace she still mistrusted.

She knew how easily it could all be taken away.

She glanced toward the church, to the chapel higher up the hill. She had watched Gray climb up there with the others a few minutes ago. She did not doubt his love for her, nor could she deny how she felt about him. But as much as she tried to hide it — and she was good at putting on other faces — she could not discount her wariness when around him. It was some combination of fear at losing him coupled with the guilt that she did not deserve him.

Or any of this new life.

The bang of a door drew her attention back to the church. A middle-aged couple headed toward the small parking lot. The woman slipped her hand in her husband’s, as naturally and easily as a bird landing on a limb. The wife said something that made the man smile. As they walked, they drew imperceptibly closer. It was a dance older than time, driven by their paired hearts beating together, synchronized by the passing years into a perfect rhythm.

She shifted, stiffening her back. The sight irritated her — not because she envied them, but because she didn’t. She found them naïve, blissfully ignorant of the harsher realities of life. For her, such peace was an illusion, a purposeful blindness, like blinkering a horse’s eyes to keep it from spooking at the dangers around it.

In the end, the only true and lasting peace was found in death.

And I don’t intend to go without a fight.

An echoing rumble drew her attention away from the couple and toward the lower road. A tourist bus slowly trundled a switchback, heading up. It was painted a bright crimson, with a stylized dragon emblazoned on its side. She had seen similar buses across Europe, full of camera-toting Asian tourists who flocked together as a group, clinging to their own culture as a wall against foreign influence. She knew some of the tour companies even discouraged their clients from sampling local cuisine, preferring instead to stop at noodle shops or Asian restaurants.

Though the sight of such a bus was common throughout Europe, Seichan still slunk deeper into the shadows of the convent. She knew a Chinese faction had kidnapped Kowalski and Lena’s sister and likely orchestrated the ambush in Ogulin.

As a precaution, Seichan maneuvered over to a narrow window, open to the soft breezes across the mountaintop. The voices of the nuns in midday prayers grew louder, rising from deeper within the centuries-old structure. Earlier, she had canvassed the area, making a full circuit of the grounds, surveying various vantages of approach and escape.

Crouched now, she listened for the crunch of gravel under the bus’s tires as it pulled into the parking lot. She took that moment to leap up and drop cleanly through the convent window into the empty room beyond. Safely ensconced out of sight, she spied as the bus heaved to a stop amid a cloud of dust and exhaust.

After a moment, the doors sighed open, and people began piling out, stretching, yawning, and checking cameras. The tour guide — a hummingbird of a woman in a bright crimson jacket that matched the bus’s exterior — opened an umbrella of the same color. She used it both to shade herself and as a focus of attention as she chattered loudly in Mandarin, trying to herd her charges together. After a bit of wrangling, she began to march her clients toward the wooden doors of the church.

Seichan studied the tourists. They were all Chinese, ranging in age from young children to bent-backed elders. Clearly this was no assault team. Still, such a crowd offered the perfect cover for anyone who wanted to get closer to Seichan’s group. She observed each member closely, paying attention to how they moved, who they talked with, how they interacted.

Six men — all in their late twenties or early thirties — made her uneasy. They did not walk together, nor did they converse with anyone else. Instead, their eyes swept the mountaintop a little too purposefully, and one gaze settled for several seconds too long on their parked Mercedes SUV. As that figure turned back around, she noted a telltale bulge under his light jacket.

It could be a camera — but she wasn’t buying that.

She ducked away, struggling for a plan, yet knowing one certainty.

The time for peace was over.

Gray led the others down the dark staircase. The way was narrow and treacherously steep, requiring them to proceed single file. He lit their path with a penlight while Lena trailed behind, using her cell phone to help illuminate her steps. The air was several degrees cooler than the sunlit chapel above and also drier than he had expected.

Like entering a dusty Egyptian tomb.

Roland ran his fingers along the wall. “If I had to guess, I’d say this must lead to some cavern within the mountain, similar to Saint Benedict’s grotto.”

In another handful of steps, the priest’s estimation proved to be true as Gray’s light vanished into a cave. It was small, no more than five yards across. As he stepped off the last stair, his bootheel sank into what appeared to be a layer of crushed gravel over the floor. He moved aside to let the others join him. The crunch of their steps was loud in such a confined space, but not enough to cover the others’ gasps of shock.

Lena lifted her cell phone higher.

Roland wavered where he stood, looking close to falling to his knees.

Across the cavern, seated on a throne carved from the bedrock, was a bronze figure of the Virgin Mary. It was a perfect replica of the wooden Madonna in the sanctuary’s church — from the bejeweled crown atop her head to the infant Christ cradled on her lap.

“She’s beautiful,” Roland murmured.

Lena spoke, tempering his enthusiasm. “But it’s not what we came to find.” She searched around at the rock walls of the cave. “It’s just another chapel. Maybe a private place for Father Kircher to pray to the Virgin Mary.”

“Still, to discover such a holy place, one hidden for centuries…” Roland’s voice was full of passion, sounding close to tears. “It’s miraculous.”

Gray stepped closer, washing the beam of his penlight over the figure. “For now I’m less concerned about miracles than I am about answers. Like, why did Father Kircher hide this statue down here?”

He stared up into those serene eyes of the Madonna, remembering how Sister Clara had said Kircher wanted his heart to be buried in the church beneath that holy gaze.

There must be more here.

He looked down at his toes, sweeping at the gravel. The granular material did not look like debris from the construction, but more like kitty litter. The motion drew Roland’s attention from the statue.

Gray leaned down and pinched up some of the grains, rolling them between his fingers. “It’s like what I felt plugging the keyhole above. Some sort of sand.”

Roland bent down and examined it himself. “Not sand,” he concluded, a soft smile on his face as he looked back up. “Silica.”

“Silica?” Lena asked.

“A form of silicon dioxide,” Roland explained. “Like you find in those desiccant packets inside pill bottles, used to keep things dry.”

No wonder the air down here felt so arid.

“The material was a scientific curiosity during Father Kircher’s time,” Roland continued. “He wrote chapters on its synthesis and drying properties. He even used it to help preserve some of the inner workings of his mechanical devices.”

Lena glanced back to the stairs. “Like the locking mechanism above.”

Roland nodded.

“Maybe not just that,” Gray added. “Father Novak, didn’t you tell us that Kircher built moving statues, some of which were featured in his museum?”

Roland’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…” He turned toward the bronze sculpture of the Madonna. “It couldn’t be.”

Only one way to find out.

Gray crossed to the statue and searched with his penlight, suspecting what he would find. He discovered it in the crown atop Mary’s head: a cross-shaped hole framed by a crescent of jewels below it.

Like a rack of antlers.

Roland made the sign of the cross, whispering a prayer.

Lena looked no less stunned.

Gray handed his penlight to Roland and retrieved Kircher’s old skeleton key. He had to lean on the statue’s lap to reach up to the crown.

“Careful,” Roland warned.

He slipped the key into the cross and seated it fully in place. He turned it a full revolution — but nothing happened. He tried it again to no better effect.

“Maybe it’s broken,” Lena said, crossing her arms nervously.

Gray repeated his effort, noting a slowly growing tension with each turn. “It feels like something’s tightening inside.”

“Keep it up,” Roland encouraged, his eyes shining with hope.

Gray obeyed, continuing to turn the key, feeling that tautness increase with every revolution. He understood what Roland was hoping for.

I’m winding something up.

Soon he had to fight the key to turn it, the tiny steel skulls biting into his fingertips. Then finally something popped inside the statue, ringing the bronze like a bell.

Startled, Gray stumbled back a step, yanking out the key.

Roland grabbed his elbow — not to keep him on his feet, but in shock. “Look!”

A ticking whir sounded from the statue, and a dark line split the Madonna from crown to foot. The statue opened on its own, unfolding into two halves, like some bronze sarcophagus.

This time even Gray gasped along with the others.

Nestled within the hollow sculpture were the remains of an ancient skeleton. But this was no pile of limbs and skulls. The bones here had been carefully rearticulated and wired together in bronze, positioned exactly like the Madonna. The figure was seated serenely, with those bony sockets staring down at them, overhung by thicker brows, marking her as uniquely different from modern man.

“We found her,” Lena whispered. “We found Eve.”

“That’s not all,” Roland said, shuffling forward. “Look at what she’s holding.”

In one arm, she cradled a yardstick-long staff of bone across her lap, mimicking how the Madonna had held the infant Jesus, but this wasn’t what drew the most attention. Balanced on the figure’s knee was a ball of rock about the size of a grapefruit.

Gray shone his light upon it, revealing details carved over half its surface, showing star-shaped craters and smooth planes of lakes.

“It’s a sculpture of the moon,” Roland said. “Mapping its near side perfectly.”

Lena drew even closer. “Impossible.”

Gray didn’t understand the severity of their reactions. Roland had shown them Father Kircher’s drawings of the lunar surface earlier. Such knowledge shouldn’t have warranted the shared looks of disbelief on their face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Lena glanced back at him. She had to swallow before she could speak. “There are darker pieces of calcite still stuck on the back side of the sphere.”

Gray frowned, not understanding.

“This isn’t from Father Kircher’s time,” Roland explained. “This must’ve been taken from that niche in the prehistoric sculpture gallery we told you about. It was clearly broken free from the millennia of calcite dripping and frozen over it.”

Lena pointed. “Which means this model of the moon must be tens of thousands of years old.”

Gray stared harder at that mystery.

That was impossible.

Roland fell back a step, lifting a hand to his brow. “No wonder Kircher became so obsessed with the moon, with searching for the source of ancient knowledge. Like us, he had to recognize the impossibility of this discovery.”

“Maybe that’s why he sealed up that cavern system,” Lena said. “And stamped it with that stern warning against any trespass.”

“And why he hid everything down here in the end,” Roland added.

Lena touched the priest’s arm. “In doing so, Kircher proved himself to be a true scientist. He protected and preserved what he found for posterity.”

Roland sighed. “He must have spent the latter years of his life investigating all of this in secret. Revealing what he knew to only a handful of his closest colleagues. And while he likely never fully understood his discovery, he clearly came to revere it.”

Gray studied the beautiful craftsmanship of the mechanical Madonna and couldn’t disagree.

Lena lifted a hand toward the long staff resting in the Neanderthal woman’s skeletal fingers. “I think this is carved out of ivory, maybe from a mammoth tusk.”

“What is it supposed to be?” Gray asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe a crutch. From the arthritic changes in some of the bones, she was very old when she died.”

Gray stared at that staff, sensing there was more here than just a prehistoric cane, especially as prominently as it was displayed here. He could even see faint notches along its length, like some prehistoric yardstick.

Lena leaned closer. “Look. The pinkie on this hand is callused from an old break.”

“A broken finger.” Roland peered over her shoulder. “Same as those palm prints we saw above her gravesite.”

“And in that cavern of niches and statues. Which means it’s all the same woman. She must have made that wall painting and likely sculpted that representation of the moon.”

Gray hung back as they focused fully on the skeleton. From his vantage, he noted something the other two had missed. The inner surfaces of the two halves of the hollow bronze Madonna offered more mysteries. On one side, a map had been inscribed into the metal. Gray could make out a large island, but any further details were too faint to discern from this distance.

On the other half of the shell, a leather-bound book rested in a bronze sleeve. The top half was visible, showing a familiar labyrinth gilded on the cover.

As he shifted his penlight to better illuminate the book, the motion drew Roland’s eye. The priest exhaled sharply, recognizing what Gray already understood.

Roland’s hands reached for it, but then fell back away in caution. “It’s a copy of Kircher’s journal.”

Before they could decide what to do next, Gray’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered it, only to be immediately cut off by Seichan.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said in a rush. “We’ve got company.”

13

“According to the zoo map,” Monk said, “the gorilla habitat should be around the next bend.”

He and Kimberly continued along a tree-lined path, winding past Plexiglas-enclosed monkey cages. With the collar of his jacket pulled high, he kept a grip on Kimberly’s hand as they strolled through the Beijing Zoo, continuing their charade of husband and wife.

He glanced at his watch.

They had entered the park fifteen minutes ago, passing through a tall set of arched gates, magnificently carved with a riotous display of dragons. That majestic introduction had not prepared Monk for the shabby conditions of the park inside.

A majority of visitors aimed for the zoo’s greatest attraction, the Panda House, which was conveniently positioned near the main gate. That exhibit looked modern and inviting, housing China’s national treasure: the giant pandas. Resisting the tidal pull in that direction, he and Kimberly had continued deeper into the park.

What they found beyond the Panda House was not only disheartening but heartbreaking.

Monk skirted past an exhibit holding a troop of golden-haired monkeys. The glass was filthy, the pen inside just as dirty. Worst of all, several visitors had ducked under the rail barrier and were rapping at the glass, yelling and taunting — which only seemed to terrorize the animals inside.

From the little he had seen of the rest of the park, such behavior seemed perfectly acceptable. Certainly no attendants came forth to scold anyone. Back at an open-air pit that held a Mongolian she-bear, the floor of her featureless concrete pen was littered with refuse tossed down at the poor creature: candy wrappers, cups, napkins. Monk had watched a laughing teenager pour a bottle of Coke over the despondent bear’s head. He had to restrain himself from bumping the kid over the rail into that pit.

Kimberly must have sensed his growing aggravation. “I know it’s disillusioning,” she whispered. “The lack of upkeep, the shameful behavior of the visitors, the sorry state of the habitats—”

“Sorry is hardly the word I’d use.” Monk waved back. “This place is a hellhole.”

“It’s just a reflection of the times in this country,” she said, trying to calm him down. “Yes, this is backward for a zoological park in the modern age, but from what I read before landing here, there’s already talk of moving the park out to the suburbs, where land is cheaper and where the animals will have larger habitats.”

“Why wait so long?” he asked. “After all the money the Chinese government poured into their Olympic village, they should have done something about this place. If nothing else, police it better. The government certainly has no problem with pushing the populace around. So why tolerate that?”

He pointed to a tourist who was kicking at the grate to the habitat of a red fox, which quivered and cowered on the far side.

“What’s wrong with these people?” he muttered.

“You must remember, to the Chinese, animals are still considered food, medicine, or entertainment. The signs on the cages once listed which parts of the animals were the tastiest and which made the best medicines.” She cocked her head toward Monk. “So you see, things are getting better already.”

Disgusted, he increased his pace toward the great ape section of the park. The zoo was due to close in an hour, and he wanted to canvass as much of the grounds as possible before they were forced to leave. But with the zoo encompassing over two hundred acres, they had to use their time judiciously. The plan was to concentrate their search on the great ape exhibit. If Baako had been taken to the zoo, it was the most logical place to look first.

After the park closed, he and Kimberly would make a circuit of the zoo grounds from the outside to search for any sign of Kowalski and Maria Crandall. Back at Sigma, Painter was continuing to monitor for any further blips from the GPS tracker while Kat prepared a detailed map of the immediate area, both above- and belowground.

Monk stared at his toes. From a preliminary briefing by Painter, the park had many subterranean facilities, but the extent of them was not fully known.

Kimberly noted his attention and guessed his thoughts. “Anything could be down there,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Another popular tourist destination in Beijing is the Dìxià Chéng, the Underground City. Built as a bomb shelter for the populace back in the seventies, it covers eighty square miles and is said to have over a hundred entrances, most of which are hidden in shops or along streets. Though a small area is open to the public, the rest remains secret.”

Monk tried to picture such a massive infrastructure buried under his feet. “Do you think it could extend this far?”

“Possibly. It does link most of the major city sites: the railway station, Tiananmen Square, even the Forbidden City.”

Monk rubbed his chin in thought. It could definitely be worth investigating.

“Look,” Kimberly said, drawing his attention back up. “There are the chimpanzees.”

Monk searched around. It seemed they had finally reached the region of the park that housed the zoo’s great apes.

The chimp enclosure looked little better than the others he’d seen. The glass was smudged. The cages had exposed piles of dung dotting the floor, along with standing pools of urine. The animals inside looked despondent, slumped on the concrete, picking at themselves. Patrons pounded on the glass and hollered for attention.

A lone gorilla sat in a neighboring pen. His cage was little more than a concrete cell. The large beast squatted in a corner, his back turned from the assault on his cage. Monk could not imagine such a life, one of isolation, lacking proper mental stimulation, all compounded by the nonstop taunting. If this was happening in China’s capital city, he feared what he would find at the smaller zoos of this country.

Kimberly kept her voice to a whisper as she searched the neighboring cages. “I see no sign of Baako.”

As much as Monk wanted to find the kidnapped research animal here, a part of him was glad. No living creature deserved to be treated like this.

Perhaps sensing his sympathy, the gorilla turned toward Monk, those large dark eyes looking lost and forlorn. Large nostrils flared, sniffing the air. Then, with a heavy huff, he turned back to the wall.

Sorry, big guy, if I could rescue you I would.

“This is a dead end,” Kimberly said.

He agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before I shoot someone.

He continued with Kimberly, winding their way back toward the main gates. Beyond the exhibits, the parklands themselves were quite handsome, with creeks lined by willows, large blue ponds holding wading birds, and a generous number of wooden pavilions and painted colonnades.

Still, such beauty was not enough to mask the torment found here.

Monk grew ever grimmer, weighed down by their failure to discover any sign of the kidnapped group. Still, he clung to a bit of faith.

Maria and Baako were not alone.

C’mon, Kowalski, give us some sign.

“Do it,” Kowalski growled.

He signed the same to his cellmate, keeping his back to the overhead camera outside the concrete pen. He wasn’t sure if anyone was watching them, but he couldn’t take that chance.

Baako stared over at him, looking reluctant.

Kowalski made the okay signal with his fingers, encouraging the gorilla’s cooperation. This had to look good. He had spent the past hour, slowly gesturing as furtively as he could, trying to get Baako to understand.

He signed again.

[You must, buddy… if you want to see Maria again]

Kowalski wasn’t sure how much his hairy companion understood, but this plan was their only hope.

Baako hesitated, hooting in worry and fear. Then the gorilla’s hand rose and tapped a thumb against his chin, his fingers splayed stiffly. He grunted questioningly at Kowalski.

[For Mama?]

“That’s right,” Kowalski said, realizing he must be talking about Maria.

The kid’s actually pretty damned smart. Maybe this will work.

Kowalski stepped closer, tilting his chin slightly. Baako met his gaze. Kowalski nodded.

Now or never, little guy.

Baako swung his arm high, then whipped it back around, striking Kowalski across the face. Nails gouged his cheek. The blow was harder than Kowalski had expected. He went toppling backward, wondering if his head was still on his neck.

Baako cringed, cowering down slightly.

Kowalski rolled to a seat and scooted on his butt away from Baako while gesturing low. [I’m all right] He then curled his fingers at Baako, motioning for him to come again.

Baako charged. Kowalski didn’t have to fake looking scared as he hastily retreated. The gorilla was a lot stronger than he looked. Baako barreled into him, striking a shoulder into Kowalski’s chest and slamming him against the bars.

Kowalski gasped to loosen his lungs from the impact, then hollered as loudly as he could. “Hey! Someone help! Get me out of here!”

A moment later, the door at the end of the block of pens crashed open. A glance over his shoulder revealed two uniformed men rushing toward him. One carried an electric prod, the other a rifle.

He bit back a groan. He had hoped only one guard would come, someone he could overpower, allowing them both to escape.

So that meant going to plan B.

Before the guards reached him, Kowalski lifted both arms to his chest and jiggled his arms. While the motion might look like he was guarding himself in fear, it was actually a simple sign.

[Be aggressive]

Baako needed no coaxing to appear angry. His eyes flashed with fury at the sight of the soldiers, at the crackle of the electric prod. He took a firm stand two yards away. Leaning on the knuckles of one arm, he pounded his chest with the other fist. He also bared his teeth in a fearsome display.

“Let me out of here!” Kowalski yelled.

The guard with the cattle prod fumbled a set of keys into the lock and yanked the door open. In his other hand, he brandished the sparking end of his electric weapon at Baako. It allowed Kowalski a chance to roll out of the cage. He grappled with the man in his haste to escape until he was shoved away.

The other soldier stood well back, his assault rifle held at his shoulder, swinging his aim from Baako to Kowalski and back again.

Kowalski gestured surreptitiously to Baako, lowering a palm.

[Back down]

Baako huffed loudly, looking irritated, but he swung away and retreated on all fours to the back of the pen.

The guard shut the door with a loud clang and relocked it.

Kowalski fingered the deep scratches on his face, rubbing the blood around to make it look even worse. “Thought he was going to kill me.”

The two soldiers spoke rapidly to each other in Mandarin. Only now did Kowalski recognize the guard with the cattle prod. It was that jackass, Gao, the head of the group who had kidnapped them all. The bastard must have returned from wherever he had taken Maria and come to check up on his other prisoners.

Gao spat through the bars at Baako, then waved Kowalski forward, threatening him with the prod. The guard with the rifle flanked his other side.

Kowalski kept his arms half raised, doing his best to look sheepish. “Take me to Dr. Crandall. She should know about all of this.”

He got no acknowledgment, so he simply let himself be marched out of the cellblock. Before the door closed, he glanced back at Baako, feeling guilty about abandoning the little guy. He clenched both of his raised fists and clutched them to his chest.

[Be brave]

Baako watches the big man leave, sees the door close. He remembers the man’s last words, but he finds nothing but fear inside him. It does not help that his sharp nose catches the scent of blood under his fingernails. His breathing comes harder, forcing him to drop to the ground.

He hugs his knees, wishing it was Mama he hugged.

He looks slowly around the room. There are no toys, no drawing board, no ropes. He stares toward the food in the bucket, but he has no hunger.

Only fear.

He keeps his back to the far corner, turned away from the stinking pile, where the man made him go. There is no toilet here like back home. He feels shame — not only because he was taught not to go on the floor, but because he knows what is hidden in there, put there by the man.

He huffs his confusion, his frustration.

He thumbs his chin, rocking in place.

[Mama, Mama, Mama…]

Then a loud noise erupts — a roaring, a fierce bellowing. It comes from the big shiny door at the other end of the room. Red letters shine on a sign above it, angry like a warning. Something bangs heavily against that door.

Baako goes still, afraid to move, fearful of attracting whatever screamed like that. His tiny hairs quiver with warning. He hears blood in that roaring, as surely as he smells it from his fingertips. His two mothers told him stories at night, often with pictures. Some had monsters in them: shadows lurking under a bed or trolls hiding under bridges.

Trolls eat goats, he remembers Mama telling him.

He does not know what made that bellow. It goes silent again, but Baako fears he might be a goat in this story.

He turns from that shiny door and toward the double doors at the other end of the room, where the big man vanished, but he thinks of another.

Mama, where are you?

Maria paced the length of the octagon-shaped room. The floors were polished concrete, the walls a featureless white plaster. All around, glass-enclosed alcoves held ancient artifacts and tools, their antiquity in direct contrast to the modern sterility of the place.

Dr. Dayne Arnaud stood before one of the cases, slightly bent at the waist, his hands clasped behind him. The paleontologist studied a fist-size stone, chipped into a prehistoric hand ax. But from the haunted expression on his face, he likely had little interest in what he was looking at and sought only to distract himself from the situation at hand.

She understood. The brutal and sudden execution of Professor Wrightson weighed upon them both.

She glanced to a pair of armed guards flanking the exit. Jiaying Lau had escorted her and Dr. Arnaud down into the subterranean complex beneath the zoo and abandoned them in this museum room, promising to return shortly.

That was over an hour ago. By now Maria’s nerves were stretched as tautly as piano wire. She finally stopped next to the French paleontologist.

Maybe if we compared notes…

“Dr. Arnaud,” she said, drawing his attention. “Do you have any thoughts or theories about what might be going on here?”

He glanced to the exit and gave a small shake of his head.

She sighed, trying to sort things out. “Clearly this must be some sort of covert genomics project, one tied to ancient DNA, but there’s something else going on here, something the Chinese are still keeping under wraps. After they kidnapped you and Professor Wrightson, were you able to overhear anything?”

“Hélas, Docteur Crandall,” Arnaud started, then firmed his lips and switched to English. “I’m sorry. But unfortunately I know no Mandarin, so the little that I overheard was meaningless to me.”

She was in the same boat.

“But,” he said, sweeping an arm, “from the collection gathered here, I can make some suppositions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me show you.”

He marched her over to one of the larger alcoves. On a shelf, illuminated from panels at the back, rested a massive skull, far larger than any human’s, but with similar conformations.

Something in the ape family, she guessed.

When Arnaud spoke, she heard the envy in his voice. “Nothing like this skull has ever been found. At least not this intact.”

“What is it?”

“An extinct species of gorilla. Gigantopithecus blacki. Such beasts roamed the highlands of southern China and Vietnam until they died off a hundred thousand years ago.”

She eyed the size of the skull. “It must’ve been massive.”

“En effet,” he agreed. “It stood three meters tall and weighed as much as five hundred kilograms.”

She tried to imagine such a half-ton beast.

“All we know about the species,” Arnaud continued, “comes from a handful of molars and a few fragments of jaw. The first teeth were found back in 1935 at an apothecary shop in Hong Kong.”

“As in a drugstore? What were the teeth doing there?”

“In Chinese medicine, fossilized bones were often pulverized into a powder to formulate elixirs.”

“But what’s all of this have to do with what’s going on here?”

He stared around at the collection. “From this specimen and several others, I would wager someone has made a discovery of astounding importance, a cache of fossils and relics that could potentially rewrite what we understand about our early history.”

She frowned at the gorilla skull. “What do you mean, our history?”

“Like I said, Gigantopithecus went extinct only a hundred thousand years ago, making it a contemporary of early man in this region.” He moved to another alcove. “And look at all of the bone, antler, and stone tools on display here. From my estimate, they all date to the Upper Paleolithic.”

She slowly nodded. She knew that period well from her own research. It was when Neanderthals coexisted with humans, along with a handful of other hominin tribes still in existence: the Denisovans, the hobbit-like Homo floresiensis, even a few surviving Homo erectus relatives.

It was a pivotal moment in human history.

Arnaud directed her next to a stone figure. It was a crude depiction of a gravid woman squatted around her large belly. “Such Venus figures began appearing in the Upper Paleolithic. The Venus of Willendorf, the Venus of Laussel, et cetera. If you look closely, you can see traces of red ocher painted on this figurine, a clear sign of ritualistic behavior.”

“So you believe this entire collection all came from a relatively narrow sliver of history?”

“Not only that, but also the same place. From the presence of that intact Gigantopithecus skull, I’d say these artifacts all came from southern China, maybe up in the Himalayas. Which brings us to this unusual item.” He shifted her over to another case, to another skull, this one much smaller. “Notice the blend of archaic features and modern anatomy found in this specimen. The flat face, the thick skull bones, the broad nose.”

“It looks human.”

“But not quite.” He glanced over to her. “This skull belongs to a cave-dwelling people, a tribe who were only recently discovered in the southern provinces of China. They’re called the Red Deer Cave people, and their existence still baffles paleontologists and archaeologists.”

“Why?”

“Because they shouldn’t exist. For the longest time, it was accepted that Neanderthals were the last of our closest relatives to survive, dying off some thirty to forty thousand years ago. But the bones of the Red Deer Cave people date back only eleven thousand years.”

Her eyes widened. That was a mere blip in geological time.

“Most paleontologists believe they’re a subspecies of human, a crossbreed of Homo sapiens and a more ancient hominin tribe, the Denisovans, further proving our ancestry is much more blended than previously suspected.”

She already knew this to be true. It was well documented that humans carried the genes from both Neanderthals and Denisovans, the percentages of which varied by regions. But much still remained a mystery, like the fact that a recent comprehensive study suggested our genetic ancestry owed a debt to a third archaic group, one as yet unknown.

The possibilities intrigued her.

If that puzzle could be solved, what might be learned about our true past?

“Do you think that’s what the Chinese are exploring here?” she asked. “Trying to piece together the genetic root of what makes us human?”

“I don’t know.” He swept his gaze across the room. “But from the pristine condition of these fossils and relics — all marking such a significant moment in time — the Chinese discovered something important, something they judged valuable enough to keep hidden from the rest of the scientific world.”

She considered the cost involved in the construction of this buried laboratory complex. It must have been substantial, on a par with the Manhattan Project. But even more disconcerting was who was running it all.

She glanced to the uniformed guards. “If you’re right about this discovery, why is it being run by a division of the Chinese military?”

Arnaud furrowed his brow. “Perhaps they are seeking a way to weaponize what they found.”

Maria took in a deep breath, horrified at what that might mean.

“Then again, Dr. Crandall, was not your own research funded by DARPA, the U.S.’s military science division?”

That was certainly true.

Are my hands any cleaner?

Her funding came from a division of DARPA called the Biological Technologies Office, whose mission statement was to explore the boundary between the biological and the physical sciences. Before accepting DARPA’s grant money, she had read up on other BTO projects, many of which involved enhancing soldiers in various ways: from advanced prosthetics to cortical implants. But one of the projects also sought ways to increase human intelligence through genetic manipulation. She suspected her and Lena’s research with Baako was linked to that long-term goal.

She closed her eyes, unable to deny the truth any longer. Like it or not, the world was in the midst of an escalating biotechnological arms race. And she and Lena were a part of it.

But who were we truly working for? She pictured Amy Wu’s smiling face. Was it China or the United States?

She breathed harder, realizing now she would have no choice in the matter going forward, not if she wanted to live. She remembered the lesson in the brutal execution of Professor Wrightson.

Be useful… or be dead.

She stared toward the exit, knowing the one person who would decide her fate.

As if responding to her summons, the door opened and a figure entered, followed by an armed Chinese soldier. But the newcomer wasn’t the one whom Maria had been expecting.

Kowalski lumbered into the room. He cast a scowl back at the man with the pistol — it was that bastard Gao — then turned to Maria. His left cheek looked freshly bandaged, and he was wearing a new set of gray coveralls.

“There you are,” he grumbled.

“What happened?” She studied his face. “Is Baako—”

Kowalski fingered his bandage. “He freaked out. Attacked me.”

Maria felt her heart skip a beat, but then Kowalski flattened his fingers and scooped them under his chin, signing to her.

[I’m lying]

He stared pointedly at her. “We should both go down there and try to calm him.”

Before she could respond, Gao prodded Kowalski deeper into the room. “The major general says for you all to wait here.”

Kowalski’s jaw tightened with frustration.

Seems we’re not going anywhere yet.

With no more explanation, Gao swung away and stormed out of the room. Clearly something had the Chinese soldier agitated.

“What was that all about?” Maria asked Kowalski.

Kowalski looked grim and kept his voice to a whisper. “I think they may be onto us.”

“I’m certain my brother left no trail for the Americans to follow,” Chang Sun insisted. The lieutenant colonel stood at stiff attention, but his eyes blazed with anger. “I would stake my life on it.”

And I will hold you to that, Jiaying thought.

She stood inside the complex’s security office. Earlier she had received a warning from the Ministry of State Security, which oversaw intelligence operations for the People’s Republic of China. From rumblings within the U.S. intelligence services, it seemed the Americans suspected who was behind the attack on the primate center. And if so, she had to assume the Americans might be sending assets to investigate.

If they aren’t already here…

To ramp up the facility’s security, she had personally come down to this office, into the heart of the section run by Chang. It was a purposeful trespass to demonstrate her fury, a sign that she lacked confidence in the lieutenant colonel’s ability.

She swept her gaze across the bank of monitors covering the three walls. Technicians were normally seated at the U-shaped desk below those monitors, observing the feed from the various cameras positioned throughout the underground complex and the zoo above. She had ordered everyone out to have this private conversation with Chang.

She let the man stew upon her rebuke, staring instead at the monitor that showed Dr. Crandall’s gorilla seated sullenly in his pen. “And you had that beast’s body and cage thoroughly scanned for any hidden electronics.”

“Gao saw to it personally just now. After he strip-searched and did the same to the zookeeper. There’s nothing. Like I said, there was no failure on my brother’s part that could have led the Americans to look toward our shores.”

“But according to the Ministry of State Security, they are doing exactly that.”

“Then it must have been something the Americans learned from that mole in the White House’s science division. Who knows what Dr. Wu told them before she died or what the Americans learned afterward?”

Jiaying recognized this was a likely scenario. Thankfully, Dr. Wu knew no details about these labs. Still, Jiaying refused to loosen the noose from around Chang’s neck or his younger brother’s. Not until she was fully satisfied that the Americans knew nothing about this facility.

“What about Dr. Crandall?” Chang asked.

Jiaying shifted her attention to another monitor, one showing an overhead view of the room holding the American geneticist and the French paleontologist. They had just been joined by the tall zookeeper, led there by Gao.

“I will bring a technician with me when I rejoin her and scan her there,” she said. “I still have much to discuss with her.”

“Do you believe she’ll cooperate?”

“That will depend to a large extent on whether you are able to secure her sister. How are matters proceeding in Italy?”

Jiaying took pleasure in pointing out another of Chang’s failures. Apparently Lena Crandall had survived the caves of Croatia and was on the run with a small group whose identities and loyalties remained obscure. Jiaying was still mystified by the strange path that Lena and these others had taken in Italy.

It made no sense.

Why had they gone to that remote Catholic sanctuary?

Chang spoke stiffly, “All should be resolved within the hour.”

“Let’s hope in a satisfactory manner. I suggest you concentrate on that and leave the matter of Maria Crandall’s cooperation to me.”

Jiaying glanced over to another screen. The monitor was dark. It required a special key to access that feed, a key only she and Chang possessed. When activated, it offered a view down into the Ark. With the two sisters in hand, the problems facing the facility could be resolved more quickly.

Then again, if need be, Jiaying could manage with only one of the sisters.

She turned to Chang and fixed him with a cold stare. “See that our perimeters are continually monitored, especially for any foreigners.”

“And my brother?”

She turned and headed toward the door. “An agent from the ministry will be here shortly to interrogate Gao. Once finished, have your brother dismissed from the premises until we fully grasp the breadth of his failure.”

“But—”

“Are you questioning my orders, Zhōngxiào Sun?”

She felt the other’s gaze burning a hole into her back. She preferred to keep those two brothers apart, to keep Chang isolated from any support. The lieutenant colonel would tread more carefully and respectfully, knowing his brother’s career could be in jeopardy.

“Bù, Shàojiàng Lau,” he said.

She smiled, hearing the obeisance in Chang’s voice.

That’s more like it.

She headed out, determined to bend another just as firmly to her will.

Maria stood with her arms outstretched to her sides as an electronic wand was passed over her body by a technician in a white lab jacket. Major General Jiaying Lau stood to one side with her arms crossed. The woman had asked her to submit to this search but had never explained why.

Not that I can’t guess.

The Chinese must have caught wind of the possible presence of the GPS tracker, but the haphazard search suggested they were unsure. It felt more like they were covering their bases. She glanced over the top of the technician’s head toward Kowalski. He looked unperturbed. Surely the guards had already searched him and likely used the wand on Baako, too.

The technician said something in Mandarin to Jiaying, bowing his head slightly and stepping away. She could guess what he was telling his superior: All clear. So what had happened to the tracker? Had Kowalski found a way to hide it in Baako’s cell? Or had Baako swallowed it?

She had so many questions, but Jiaying had returned before she could get anything further from Kowalski.

The major general stepped forward. “With that matter settled, Dr. Crandall, let us continue our earlier conversation regarding the research being conducted here. I believe that once you fully appreciate what we’re trying to accomplish, you’ll want to be part of it.”

Like hell I will, she thought, but she turned and looked about the octagon-shaped room full of fossils, specimens, and relics.

“If I had to hazard a guess,” Maria said, “your project must involve building a stronger soldier through genetics.”

Jiaying showed no reaction, beyond the slightest bow of her head. “Perhaps on the surface that is our goal. But the biggest advances in science have always been driven by the baser needs of the world.”

“In other words, necessity is the mother of invention,” Maria quoted.

“Such has been true since the beginning of time. But all too often what the military funds in secret eventually reaches the larger world. Look at the global Internet. It started as a small U.S. military information web, but soon expanded to change the world. Similarly, the hurdles we leap here today will alter the path of humankind tomorrow.”

“But you’re talking about seeking ways to permanently alter the human genome. Who knows what detrimental effects that could have in the long run?”

Jiaying sighed. “You’re not thinking rationally. Human activity has already been altering our genome. Smoking tobacco causes mutations in human sperm. Older men who father children have a higher likelihood of passing on similar mutations. The only difference is that those mutations are random. Why not take control of such damaging consequences to our genome?”

“That’s the key word. Control. What you’re talking about is a slippery road toward eugenics, where human life will be engineered, where babies will be designed, and where the weak will be weeded out or reduced to a second-class level of humanity. No good can come from it.”

“No good? We could erase inheritable diseases, cure cancers, prolong life, and yes, we could even improve on nature. Since when is nature infallible? Why is it so horrible to imagine humanity taking the reins of its own evolutionary future? Even your own country has not officially banned the investigation of such pursuits.”

Maria knew that all too well. Her own research could be construed as a step in that direction. What was the ethical difference between creating Baako in a lab and doing the same with a human life?

Into the silence that followed, Dayne Arnaud spoke up. “But, Major General Lau, you discovered something that set you on this path. Something significant enough to risk building this complex in secret. May I ask what it was?”

“Thank you, Dr. Arnaud, for reminding me. That was why I brought you both down here.” She walked toward the wall opposite the exit. “Are you familiar with Mount Kailash in southern Tibet?”

“Non,” he said. “I am not.”

“It’s a holy mountain in the Himalayas, a site of worship for both the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. It is upon that peak that the god, Lord Shiva, is said to reside in perpetual meditation. Pilgrims have been venturing there for centuries. Then eight years ago, a Tibetan herdsman who was looking for a lost sheep discovered a group of caves upon its slopes and brought a local anthropologist to examine what he found.”

Maria searched around the room. “And that is where you collected all of this?”

“Those caves and some others found in neighboring peaks.” Jiaying reached the wall and placed her hand on a nondescript patch. A square glowed to life, revealing a hidden electronic palm reader. “But it was in that first cave, the one discovered by the herdsman, that we found this.”

From the wall, a secret drawer slowly slid open. It was wide and deep, like a large coffin. Its interior flickered to life, steadying into a soft illumination.

“The herdsman believed he was taking the anthropologist to the cave of a yeti,” Jiaying explained. “And maybe he was not entirely wrong. Perhaps the bones we found have some bearing on the myths of such a creature roaming the snowy highlands. Or maybe even such caves gave birth to the legends of a slumbering god residing within that mountain. But in the end, the truth was far more exciting and illuminating.”

Jiaying stepped aside so Maria and Arnaud could examine what was found. Kowalski even shouldered forward to take a look. A gasp immediately rose from the French paleontologist. Maria lifted a hand to her throat, strangling back her own surprise.

Within the drawer rested the complete skeleton of an anthropoid figure. The conformations of the skull were remarkably similar to modern humans, only with larger brows and a double sagittal crest crowning its cranium. But what truly garnered such shock was the skeleton’s sheer size. The frame stretched over eight feet long, topped by a skull twice as large as a typical human’s.

It was the bones of a veritable giant.

Kowalski scoffed, “That can’t be real.”

“It is,” Arnaud said in a hushed, awed voice. “I’ve seen cranial fragments of this hominin before, but nothing this complete. The older nomenclature classified such remains as Meganthropus, or Large Man.”

“Well, that pretty much fits this guy,” Kowalski muttered.

Arnaud continued, “Most paleoanthropologists have now settled on the name Homo erectus palaeojavanicus, believing the hominin to be an offshoot of our older relative. Remains of these particularly large descendants of Homo erectus have been found throughout Southeast Asia.”

“How much did this specimen weigh when he was alive?” Maria asked.

Jiaying answered, “From the density of the long bones and the size of the skull, we estimate he weighed somewhere between three hundred and three hundred fifty kilos.”

Kowalski looked questioningly at her.

“That’s six to eight hundred pounds,” Maria explained.

Twice that of a typical gorilla.

“But from what I can tell,” Arnaud interrupted, glancing toward Jiaying, “there are several uncharacteristic features in this specimen, conformations different from the typical Meganthropus.”

Jiaying bowed her head in acknowledgment. “You are correct. From our comparative study, we believe this specimen is the result of interbreeding between Meganthropus and early humans. Hence, we’ve given it the name Homo meganthropus. This assessment is further supported by its genome, which we’ve fully mapped.”

Maria could not hide her shock. “You mean you were able to recover salvageable DNA?”

“Indeed.”

Maria looked closer and spotted several small drill holes in the pelvis and tibia. She straightened as a sudden realization dawned on her. She could barely get out any words. Geneticists and anthropologists had already hypothesized that an unknown third hominin contributed DNA to the modern human genome and that it was most likely some unclassified offshoot of Homo erectus, like these remains. Even more significantly, from studies of genetic drift, those same researchers estimated that this unknown tribe lived somewhere in central Eurasia.

She stared down into the drawer.

Am I looking at that specimen now? Is this our long-lost relative?

Arnaud followed that same thread, but from a different angle. “If you’re right about this species interbreeding with early man, what time frame are we talking about? Surely you’ve dated these bones?”

“We have. They’re approximately thirty thousand years old.”

Even Kowalski understood the implication. “So you’re saying these giants definitely roamed the world with us.”

“For a period of time,” Jiaying agreed. “And considering all the yeti sightings throughout the Himalayas, maybe they’re still around. Stories persist in remote villages of yetis stealing women, mating with them, and having offspring. So who knows?”

The general smiled softly, her eyes twinkling with amusement at such superstitions. But Maria wondered if there couldn’t be a kernel of truth in such stories, some race memory or legends going back to that time period. Even in the Old Testament, giants of two to three meters were stated to be living alongside early man.

“Did these big guys only live out this way?” Kowalski asked. “In China?”

“We have no way of knowing for sure,” Jiaying answered.

“Or maybe we do,” Arnaud said. “A countryman of mine back in 1890, an anthropologist named Georges Vacher de Lapouge, discovered a grouping of Neolithic bones at Castelnau-le-Lez in France. They became known as the Castelnau Giant, because the figure stood three meters tall. The bones were studied at the University of Montpellier by zoologists, paleontologists, and anatomists — all confirming Vacher de Lapouge’s discovery. Similar bones were later discovered in France while workers were excavating a reservoir, with skulls twice the average for a typical man. All of those discoveries dated back to the last glaciations of Europe, around the same age as the bones in this drawer.”

“So what became of these giants?” Kowalski waved an arm over the sheer length of the skeleton. “Something tells me our puny ancestors didn’t wipe these guys out… at least not without help.”

“We may have simply outsmarted them.” Arnaud leaned over the case, studying the skull more closely. “From the cranial capacity of this specimen, this creature wasn’t likely all that intelligent. Probably smart enough to be a tool user, to employ fire, similar to Homo erectus. But not much beyond that.”

Maria frowned, glancing back at the rest of the room. “Then where did all of these other artifacts come from? The bone and antler tools, not to mention that Venus figurine. Are you saying they’re not the handiwork of this hybrid?”

“I can’t imagine they are,” Arnaud said, straightening back up.

“And you would be right,” Jiaying confirmed. “We’ve had half a decade to piece together much about this tribe’s behavior, studying its caves, investigating nearby clans of other people.”

“Like the Red Deer Cave people,” Arnaud said, looking over at the smaller skull.

Jiaying nodded. “The advanced tools you find here were produced by that tribe, but we discovered several caches of the same weapons and artifacts in the caves of Mount Kailash. Along with these…”

She touched another panel and a piece of the wall slid up to reveal a shelved alcove behind glass. Halogen lights illuminated a collection of charred and broken pieces of skulls, along with fragments of pelvises and femurs. It was like a peek into a charnel house.

“Deep within the Meganthropus home caves, we found a crude crematorium. From the ashes, we pulled out these burnt bones of Red Deer Cave people.”

Maria could not hold back the disgust. “Are you saying these Meganthropus hominins were cannibals?”

Jiaying faced them. “From our archaeological research, the tribe definitely appeared to be warlike savages. They were certainly preying upon their neighbors, a behavior likely born of an ingrained xenophobia. And while Meganthropus didn’t have the innate ingenuity to manufacture their own tools and weapons, they were not above stealing such items, assimilating them.”

“But what became of them?” Maria asked.

“We believe their warring eventually turned inward, leading them to consume themselves. In that same crematorium, we found the burnt skull fragments of other Meganthropus.”

Maria let out a long breath.

So they were eating their own.

Arnaud offered one last insight. “Perhaps such behavior is why we’ve discovered so little evidence of this tribe’s existence. If they cannibalized and burned their dead, it would be harder to leave a lasting mark in the fossil record.”

“Which is why this rare find is so important,” Jiaying said. “It offers us the chance to reach deep into our common genetic heritage, to extract genes that have been proven to be compatible to modern man, lost sequences of DNA that could benefit humankind.”

“Benefit?” Maria asked. “How?”

“From the very existence of Homo meganthropus, we know we could be stronger, larger. It’s only a matter of recovering that ancient potential.”

“In order to engineer a better soldier,” Maria realized aloud.

“You are thinking too small. At your own Harvard University, geneticists have isolated ten naturally occurring gene variants that hold the potential to benefit all of mankind. For example, one of them confers greater bone density, making limbs harder and tougher to break. Another variant protects against Alzheimer’s. A third reduces the risk of heart disease.” She pointed to the open drawer. “So why not take full advantage of this genetic resource? Why not tap into that ancient potential for the betterment of all?”

“Because of that.” Maria nodded to the case of burnt bones. “Raw power — without the intelligence to wield it — is a recipe for disaster.”

Rather than challenging Jiaying, her comment drew a smile from the woman. “Precisely, Dr. Crandall.”

Maria blinked a few times, suddenly knowing why she had been brought to this lab, why the bones of that Neanderthal hybrid discovered in Croatia were so important. Her own research dealt with the evolutionary root of intelligence, that unique sequence of genes that uplifted early man from his hominin ancestors.

She gaped down at that open drawer. Apparently the Chinese had discovered the brawn; now they wanted the brains to go along with it.

Before she could protest, the door opened behind them. Chang stalked into the room. He ignored everyone else and fixed his gaze upon the major general. He spoke rapidly in Mandarin, plainly excited.

Whatever he said widened Jiaying’s smile.

Maria’s heart raced faster.

Anything that made that cold woman happier could not be good for us.

After the brief exchange, Jiaying turned to Maria.

“Dr. Crandall, I have wonderful news. It appears your sister will soon be joining us.”

14

“What do we do next?” Lena asked.

A few minutes ago, in the silence of the small cave, she had overheard Seichan’s warning over Gray’s phone: We’ve got company. Gray now stood at the base of the steps that led up to Saint Eustace’s chapel. He clutched a black pistol in one hand, guarding the only way out of here. She eyed that dark climb. Even if they reached the chapel above, what could they do? They’d be trapped atop the summit with the enemy waiting below.

“Did you finish your photos?” Gray asked.

She lifted her cell phone. “Yes.”

After Seichan’s call, Lena had taken a flurry of snapshots, capturing Father Kircher’s Eve from as many angles as she could manage in the short time. She tried to record every detail of the skeleton, along with the relics clutched in those bony hands: the moon sculpture and that strange staff. She also took photos of the hollow bronze statue that had hidden those remains for centuries.

Roland spoke as he retreated from the figure of the Madonna. “I’m done here, too.”

He held up the leather-bound journal of Athanasius Kircher, showing the gilded labyrinth on the cover. He had slipped it free from the metal sleeve on the inner surface of the hollow statue.

Roland pointed to the other half. “Lena, were you able to get a good shot of this map?”

“I did my best, but it’s inscribed rather faintly.”

“No matter,” he said, herding her away. “I’ve seen something like this before. Let’s go.”

She sensed that something deeply disturbed the priest, but she had no time to question him. They quickly joined Gray by the stairs.

“All set,” Roland said, though he stared longingly toward the bronze Madonna. He had taken several measurements. He had also slipped free that stone sculpture of the moon and stored it in a satchel over his shoulder. Still, he looked reluctant to abandon Kircher’s Eve.

Even with her heart pounding in her throat, Lena appreciated his hesitation. She wished she could have collected those bones, to preserve them for a future genetic assay, but the skeleton had been rearticulated with thick bronze wire — not only bone to bone, but also secured to the framework of the mechanical sculpture. Without wire cutters and time, she had to be satisfied with what she had archived on her phone and with what Roland had gathered. If they survived this, she could always return later.

“Follow me,” Gray said as he mounted the steps and began to climb. “But keep some distance. Let me check out the situation topside first. Wait for my signal before showing yourselves.”

They continued single file. Lena breathed heavily, with Roland rasping behind her. Gray ascended more swiftly, not making a sound. He had clicked off his penlight, so the only illumination came from the square of light marking the trapdoor in the floor of the chapel.

Gray reached the exit well before them. He stopped to inspect the thick marble tile that formed the ramp up to the chapel. Lena huffed to within four steps of his position.

Gray glanced down to them and pointed to the wall. “I found a lever over here. I think it can be used to manually raise and lower the ramp.”

“What do you want us to do?” Roland asked.

Lena could guess, which Gray confirmed with his next words.

“One of you keep a hand on it. If there’s trouble I can’t deal with, you pull the lever and stay hidden below.”

“What about you?” Lena asked.

“I’ll do my best to lead the enemy away. If I can’t make it back, you all wait until after nightfall and sneak out.”

Limned against the light above, Gray’s face was all shadows. It was impossible to tell how confident the man was about this plan.

“Roland,” Gray continued, “do you still have that secure telephone number to D.C.?”

“I do.”

“If we get separated, use it. Director Crowe will help you both get somewhere safe.”

Rather than reassuring her, these backup plans only made Lena more anxious.

Roland’s voice cracked with the same heightened tension. “O-okay.”

Gray nodded, then twisted around and dashed low up the ramp.

Lena climbed the last steps and took a position beside the bronze lever sticking out of the wall. She gripped it with both hands, finding a bit of confidence in its solidness. She stared down at Roland, his face awash in the light from above. His eyes shone with fear. Beyond his shoulders was only darkness.

Her fingers tightened on the lever.

Please, God, don’t let me have to pull this.

Gray slid next to the door of the chapel. He kept out of sight of the steep set of stairs — the Holy Ladder — that led up here from the main church. He touched the throat mike he had taped over his larynx.

“Seichan?” he whispered. He used a finger to seat the radio earpiece more firmly in place, listening for any response.

There was none.

Where are you?

While waiting for Roland and Lena to finish their work below, he had tried to contact Seichan several times — both on the radio and over the satellite phone. After her initial message, she had gone silent.

Something’s wrong.

He shifted over to a neighboring window and rose high enough to peek past a corner. The vantage was less exposed than the doorway. Below his position, the white marble steps of the Holy Ladder blazed under the midday sun. The stairs were empty for the moment, but from his lofty position, he had a clear view down into the garden courtyard behind the church. A clutch of people gathered there around the red umbrella of a tour guide.

Before going silent, Seichan had reported on the arrival of a busload of Chinese tourists — who came with a suspicious group of at least six men.

Down below, the tour guide lowered her umbrella and pointed toward the chapel.

Gray tightened his jaw.

Are the tourists heading up here?

He willed them to remain in the courtyard. He didn’t want to put any civilians at needless risk, especially if he had to shoot his way off this rocky spur of the mountain.

Then movement drew his attention. From the rear door of the church, the familiar figure of Sister Clara stepped into the sunlight. A pair of Chinese men accompanied the nun. She shaded her eyes and lifted an arm toward the chapel. The men looked in his direction.

Gray slunk farther back, cursing the nun’s goodwill. Had the men inquired about their group or was Sister Clara merely telling the story of the chapel, the legend of Saint Eustace? One of them finally bowed his head in thanks to Sister Clara. The other headed off and confronted a pair of dark figures waiting at the fork in the path. Words were exchanged; then the same pair headed down the path toward Saint Benedict’s grotto, clearly ordered to search the hermit’s old cave.

The man who gave the order was rejoined by his partner, who lifted his gaze toward the chapel.

Gray ducked completely out of sight.

So that accounts for four of the assault team.

He guessed the other two were still in the church or out front, covering the escape routes off the mountain. The enemy intended to lock the summit up tight. The only other way down from here was straight over the cliff.

And here I am without a parachute.

A muffled whisper rose from the hole in the floor behind him. He caught only a few words, but the note of inquiry was easy to recognize. Roland and Lena wanted to know what was going on.

“Stay below,” he warned as he dropped flat to his belly next to the door.

He kept his SIG Sauer extended ahead of him, aiming toward the two men as they began the hard climb toward the chapel. He weighed the option of simply rolling over to the trapdoor and hiding below with Roland and Lena, but clearly the enemy knew their targets were on the mountaintop. He feared what would happen if the assailants failed to find them, what they might do to the civilians or the group of nuns at the convent.

Plus Seichan was still down there somewhere.

Knowing that, Gray needed to stay in place, to back her up.

Halfway up the stairs, the man in the lead unzipped his thigh-length jacket, revealing Kevlar beneath and a compact assault rifle slung across his belly. He raised the gun, keeping it hidden from below with his body. Gray recognized a ZH-05 rifle, the latest hardware of China’s special forces. The weapon came equipped with a laser-guided grenade launcher.

Then if that wasn’t bad enough…

In the courtyard below, the tourist group drifted away from their guide and began to separate: some heading upward, others moving down toward the grotto. If Gray opened fire on the stairs, he risked a stray round cutting into those civilians.

He needed a new plan.

Gray glanced over his shoulder. The chapel had four windows, each open and facing a different cardinal direction. He had to get those two men in here, away from the civilians. He belly-crawled away from the door and aimed for the altar directly behind him. Above it, a window opened onto the mountain spur on that side. If he hid outside and waited for the men to enter, he could hopefully ambush the pair.

But first he had to make sure Roland and Lena remained safe.

As he reached the trapdoor in front of the altar, two pale faces stared back up at him. “Close it up,” he ordered. “We’ve got company coming.”

Though plainly frightened, Lena nodded and hauled hard on the bronze lever. It refused to budge. Lines of strain creased her forehead as she struggled with the centuries-old mechanism.

Roland squeezed next to her, adding his strength — then something finally gave way. The floor jolted and the ramp began to rise with a rhythmic ticking of gears.

Satisfied, Gray ran toward the window above the altar.

At least they would be safe.

Now to find Seichan.

He vaulted onto the altar and leaped for the sill of the open window. As he flew, a gun blast sounded behind him, coming from outside. Landing in the open window, he twisted around.

A dark object came whistling inside.

Grenade.

He barely registered it, already moving. The small 20mm grenade struck the roof and ricocheted off. It hit the top of the altar, then bounced and rattled over its edge.

With no other choice, Gray flung himself out the window — but not before he caught a glimpse of the grenade dropping through the trapdoor before it closed.

Cursing, Gray hit the ground outside and flattened to the granite mountaintop. He covered his head as the detonation shook the ground under him. Tiles broke off the chapel roof and shattered all around.

He pictured Roland’s and Lena’s scared faces.

What have I done?

What did you do, Gray?

Seichan crouched in a small cave as the explosion subsided. The flames from a dozen small candles and votives continued to shiver from the quake, dancing her shadows across the stony walls of Saint Benedict’s grotto. She kept her legs braced for another breath, her muscles bunched to make a leap for the sunlit exit.

Outside the cave, screams rose as the tourists reacted to the explosion, likely fleeing from the vicinity. Good, she thought grimly. With the crowd gone, there’d be less risk of collateral damage from the firefight to come — and it would come.

Once she was satisfied that the cave roof was not about to come crashing down, her concern returned to Gray. He must have been the target of that explosion, but she had no way of making radio contact with him inside this cave.

So first things first.

She dropped to one knee and yanked her steel dagger from the neck of her dead assailant. His cohort lay sprawled a yard away, his neck slashed from ear to ear. Earlier, she had guessed the enemy would search this dark grotto and so had set up her ambush. She had hoped to take out at least one of the enemy.

Two was even better.

She had already dispatched a third, a guard left near the parking lot. She had no trouble getting close to him, approaching him from his blind side, from the convent where she had been hiding earlier. Caught by surprise, he had reacted too slowly. Afterward, she had hid his body under the tourist bus and had circled the church to set up the trap in the grotto.

Preparing to continue her assault, she wiped the bloody dagger clean on the victim’s chest and slipped it into her wrist sheath. She tugged a sleeve over the weapon to hide it. As an extra precaution, she reached under the dead man’s jacket and removed the pistol hidden in a shoulder holster. She shoved the weapon into her belt at the base of her back. Once ready, she smoothed her disheveled clothes, checking how she looked.

At least black hid the few drops of blood splatter.

Seichan adjusted the wimple of her nun’s habit. Earlier, while hiding in the convent when the bus of Chinese tourists arrived, she had searched the rooms until she found the garment in a closet and had quickly donned the disguise. What better way to get a drop on the enemy than to play a simple nun, especially here on church grounds?

Satisfied with her look, she headed toward the exit. As she stepped out of the cave and back onto the sunny path, she came upon a young Chinese mother and her four-year-old daughter. The pair sheltered behind the grotto’s glass ossuary, as if the bones of the dead friars would protect them. The woman’s eyes met hers, her expression frightened, her arms clutching tightly around her child.

“Xiūn? jiu ming!” the woman pleaded in Mandarin.

Sister, help me!

Maintaining her guise, Seichan pointed toward a gate in the church fence that led out to the parking lot. She kept her voice soft, consoling her in Mandarin. “Get to the front, my child. Don’t stop. Keep heading down the road.”

The woman only clutched her daughter more tightly, clearly too scared to move.

Seichan rolled her eyes and took a more direct approach. Through a slit in the habit, she removed her stolen pistol and waved the barrel at the gate.

“Move! Now!”

That worked better.

Like a spooked jackrabbit, the woman bolted with her child.

With the way finally clear, Seichan stalked to the fork in the path. She now had a clear view to the chapel above. She spotted a pair of men running up the steep steps. One carried a pistol; the other hauled a smoking assault rifle. The two reached the chapel and dropped to either side of the door, their backs to the walls.

Her heart quickened, anxious for Gray.

She raised her pistol, but the men were too far away for any chance of a decent shot. So she touched her throat mike.

“Gray, are you okay?”

His voice came back immediately, whispering in her ear as he subvocalized into his mike. “Still alive, if that’s what you mean.”

Relief flooded through her, but she spoke tersely. “You’ve got two men about to knock on your front door.”

“Got that. Can you handle any others? We need a way off this rock.”

She glanced toward the church. “Working on it.”

The last assailant must still be holed up in the sanctuary, which was a problem with the tourists hiding inside. A glance to the church’s rear courtyard revealed the gardens had mostly emptied out. The tour guide remained in the open, looking anxiously up toward the chapel. The tiny woman clearly recognized the threat, yet bravely tried to get the last of her clients into the church.

Through the open door, Seichan spotted a crowd milling inside.

This is not going to end well.

She tucked her hands — including her stolen pistol — into the wide cuffs of her habit’s sleeves. She bowed her head and hurried toward that rear door, hoping her disguise held out long enough for her to surprise the remaining assailant. She did not want a firefight to break out inside that packed sanctuary.

The tour guide spotted her and motioned for Seichan to hurry. The woman still held her umbrella aloft, hiding less from the sun than from the gunmen above.

Seichan increased her pace.

As she neared the door, rifle blasts drew her attention back to the mountaintop chapel. One of the men strafed his automatic weapon through the open doorway, while the other ducked low and rolled into the chapel.

She fought against a desire to sprint up there to help Gray, but she had her own assignment. As she neared the sanctuary door, a dark figure burst out into the courtyard from the nave of the church. Seichan immediately recognized the man. The spatter of fresh gunfire must have drawn her target out. He came barreling toward her, oblivious to the threat in front of him.

She smiled, pulled out her stolen pistol, and emptied most of the clip into his chest. The impact of the barrage stopped his charge. She placed the last round through the center of his forehead. He teetered in midstep, his expression shocked — then toppled backward to the gravel path.

She tossed the spent weapon and reached through a slit in her habit. She tugged free her SIG Sauer from a hip holster — a precaution in case there were any other men. Earlier she had identified at least six, but there could be more.

In the end, she was correct about the number of men.

The tour guide lowered her umbrella between them, as if sheltering behind it. Seichan met the woman’s eyes over the top edge — and saw no fear there.

Not good.

Seichan immediately recognized her mistake.

Apparently I’m not the only one in disguise.

Seichan leaped to the side as bullets ripped through the umbrella fabric, chasing her to the ground. A round struck her SIG Sauer, knocking the weapon out of her grip.

The woman twirled the umbrella and closed in on her.

As gunshots echoed up from below, Gray skirted low around the outside of the chapel. A man called from inside, likely telling his partner that the place was empty. Gray heard the confusion in their voices. The pair must be equally mystified at the lack of damage inside the chapel from the grenade.

Gray had his own worries about that blast, about the fate of Roland and Lena.

Reaching the window on the south side, he popped up with his SIG Sauer and fired at the man inside the chapel. He squeezed his trigger twice, aiming both times for a head shot, knowing the enemy had body armor under their civilian clothes. Both rounds struck true and dropped his target to the ground. He ducked away as a spray of automatic fire ripped through the window, coming from the doorway.

Gray retreated back the way he had come, putting the chapel between him and the shooter. The window above him faced the front door. He pictured the gunman sheltered there, watching all three windows for any movement.

Gray propped his back against the wall. He held his pistol in both hands, clutching it to his chest, readying himself for the challenge, to see who was the quicker draw in this standoff.

Then a series of loud blasts rang out — three of them.

A small grenade came sailing through the window over his head. It struck a boulder ten yards away and came bouncing back toward him. He imagined similar missiles flying out the other two windows. Apparently his adversary was trying to blow him out of hiding.

It certainly worked.

With the first grenade rattling back toward him, Gray had no other option but to twist around and dive for the window above. He leaped headlong over the sill as the grenades exploded in a series of chest-thumping booms outside. As he flew through the air, he kept his arms ahead of him, cradling his pistol between his hands and firing toward the doorway.

His opponent never flinched from the barrage. The gunman lay on his belly, hiding behind the doorframe, his assault rifle chugging rounds into the chapel. Gray felt something burn across his bicep as he hit the marble floor and slid sideways into the body of the first assailant he had shot.

Gray lay on his back, using the dead man’s mass as a shield, and fired over the form.

The situation was plainly untenable — which proved true with his next breath.

A familiar sharp retort echoed from the doorway. A grenade shot past his nose, hit the altar, and ricocheted straight toward him. Anticipating such an assault this time, Gray flung the dead body over him, caught the skittering grenade with the dead man’s chest, and smothered it with the body.

Gray huddled on top, curling his limbs in tight to keep the dead man’s body armor between him and the grenade. From a corner of an eye, he saw his assailant fling himself away from the doorway, hiding from the blast to come.

The explosion tossed Gray high. He flew upward amid a cloud of blood and smoke. Then he crashed back down. But rather than hitting the floor, he fell through it as the concussive force of the grenade had shattered the thick marble slab that covered the hidden stairs.

He struck those dark steps hard.

Deaf and dazed, his ears aching, Gray clawed back to his knees, then his feet. He teetered atop the debris and lifted his head through the hole. Smoke obscured the shadowy interior of the chapel. A rectangle of sunlight glowed through the pall, marking the doorway. A shadow rose into view there.

His opponent.

Safely hidden in the smoke, Gray took his time and lifted his SIG Sauer. He had managed to keep the pistol still clutched in his right hand. He did his best to steady his aim and emptied the last of his rounds at that shadow.

With grim satisfaction, he watched the dark form slump to the ground.

Good enough.

Gray’s legs gave out and he fell sideways, sprawling across the top of the dark stairs. His vision blurred, but then a bright light grew from below, revealing two watery shapes.

Hands clutched his shoulders.

“Gray?”

It was Lena.

He forced his breath out, his lips forming a name.

“Sei… chan…”

The next round clipped the wing off an angel statue in the garden.

Nine…

As Seichan hid behind the statue, she kept count of the number of shots fired by the Asian assassin with the umbrella. If the weapon was the same design as the one Seichan had stolen from the dead man in the grotto — a Chinese QSZ-92—the dual-stack magazine held fifteen rounds, which meant her opponent still had plenty of ammunition left.

Seichan had spent the past two minutes in a fierce game of cat and mouse with the deadly woman across the church’s gardens. Loud explosions interrupted their battle, echoing down from the chapel above. Seichan took advantage of those blasts to dive from cover to cover, to draw her opponent to waste more shots.

All the while, she did her best to quell her fears for Gray, to ignore the chatter of automatic fire from up there. She needed her full attention at hand. This assassin was disciplined and well trained, with a heart as cold as her own.

Seichan caught glimpses of the woman as she danced through the gardens and shielded her form with an expert twirl of that infernal umbrella. Her adversary appeared to be no older than twenty, maybe even younger. Her straight black hair was cut in a severe line across her forehead and along the bottom of her ears. Seichan estimated her height was at best five feet, all of it lithe muscle, a frame built for speed, which the woman used to her advantage.

Seichan had tried repeatedly to reach the SIG Sauer that had been knocked out of her grip, but her opponent kept her away from the pistol. Left with only her throwing knives, Seichan had already flung two at the woman — the first sliced through the umbrella’s fabric but failed to find a target behind that shield; the second was blocked by an expert twirl of the umbrella’s steel ribs.

Crouching behind the angelic statue, Seichan reached under the torn edge of the nun’s habit and slipped her last blade from an ankle sheath.

Got to make this count.

She used the blade’s polished steel surface to spy upon her opponent without exposing herself. In the mirrored reflection, she watched the woman drift closer, angling wider for a better shot. Her body was entirely hidden behind the umbrella, her dark eyes occasionally flashing from around its edges, never at the same place twice.

Beyond that threat, Seichan had a clear view to the rear door of the church. It was still partly ajar. Shadows milled inside. People were clearly too frightened to flee out into the open with all the gunfire and explosions. She heard children crying, parents trying to hush them. She imagined calls were already being placed to local law enforcement.

But help would not arrive in time.

Knowing that, Seichan waited until the woman stepped back onto the gravel path, then made her final move. She feinted to the left side of the statue, as if trying again to go for her abandoned pistol, drawing her opponent that way. Then she rebounded back in the opposite direction, spinning under the left wing of the angel.

As she dove out of hiding, she whipped her dagger low. It flew from her fingertips, sailed under the umbrella, and caught the momentarily duped woman in the calf.

Seichan hit the ground, rolled on a shoulder, and slid behind a cement planter. She peeked through the thorns of a rosebush to see her adversary stumble several steps back along the gravel path. Still the woman made no sound, no complaint, and kept her body fully shielded behind the umbrella. Even as she retreated, she fired through her umbrella at Seichan. Though she was shooting blind, two rounds still successfully pelted into the planter.

The woman was damn good.

But I’m better.

As her opponent finally halted and gathered herself to resume her assault, she had come too close to the open door to the church — where Seichan had wanted her to be after spotting an ally inside. With the assassin’s focus fixed on Seichan, the woman had failed to note a dark shadow slip from the doorway behind her.

Seichan smiled with satisfaction.

I’m not the only nun you should’ve been worried about.

Sister Clara descended upon the woman. She swung a heavy brass crucifix in one hand and coldcocked the woman from behind.

The assassin dropped her umbrella. A gust buffeted it and rolled it across the gardens. The woman crashed to her knees, then to her side.

Seichan dashed forward, snatching up her pistol from the ground with one hand. As she reached the assassin’s side, she noted those dark eyes had rolled white. Blood seeped thickly into the gravel. Still, the woman’s chest heaved up and down.

Alive.

But not for long.

Seichan aimed her pistol toward that pale forehead, but Sister Clara stepped between her and her target.

“No,” Clara said.

Seichan stared daggers at the nun, but Clara refused to back down. Seichan read both the resolution and the compassion in the young woman’s face. The nun might be incited to violence to protect the innocents inside, but she plainly drew the line at cold-blooded murder.

Seichan growled her frustration, but she also owed the nun for her help. Plus she recognized that they could possibly get information out of this assassin when she woke up. Given the opportunity, Gray would want to interrogate her.

Seichan glanced up toward the chapel. It was still shrouded in smoke. The gunfire had ceased a minute ago. But what did that mean?

Impatient and worried, Seichan picked up the assassin’s weapon, still hot from the gunplay, and shoved it toward the nun. “Do you know how to use this?”

Clara backed a step. “Yes, but—”

“Either guard her or I shoot her.”

Clara swallowed and took the weapon. Seichan waited until the nun had the pistol pointed at the limp figure of the assassin. Only then did she twist away and sprint up the steep stairs. With every step, the fears she had held in check burned brighter in her chest.

You better be okay, Gray.

Roland climbed out of the secret tunnel and back into the chapel. He reached an arm down and helped Gray out, half pulling his dazed form free of the dark well. The man’s clothes were shredded, his skin bled from a hundred cuts. A scalp wound ran with a heavy flow of crimson down one side of his face.

But you saved our lives.

Gray crawled to the altar and settled on his backside. He sucked on the water bottle Lena had handed him below. She stood guard by the door now.

“There’s a nun coming,” she said, sounding worried. “With a gun.”

Roland felt his heart quicken.

Gray rolled to his knees and yanked out his pistol.

Lena turned to them, her voice brighter now with relief. “It’s Seichan.”

Gray fell back to his rear and mumbled, “Thank God.”

A moment later, the woman’s shadowy form wafted through the smoke and fell into the chapel like a dark falcon. She seemed to take everything in with a glance, her gaze settling on the blasted hole in the floor.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” she said.

“And apparently you have a new vocation,” Gray rasped out, eyeing the shreds of a nun’s habit. “Gotta say, the outfit sort of works for me.”

Roland frowned at the improper exchange, but he also recognized it as a coping mechanism. He read the concern between them, the shine of love that ran deeper than mere professional partners.

“Enough sitting around,” Seichan said. She crossed to Gray and brusquely offered a hand to help him up. “Time to get off this mountaintop before anyone else shows up.”

He smiled through the blood and let her haul him to his feet. “Thanks, dear.”

“Someone’s got to keep pulling your ass out of the fire.”

“You’re a little late for that.” Gray hobbled toward the door but glanced back to the secret stairs. His expression looked confused. “That first grenade, the one that fell through the trapdoor before it closed — what happened?”

Lena answered. “It dropped straight past us and rolled down those steep stairs.”

“It exploded in the cavern below,” Roland said. “My head’s still ringing from that blast.”

“But at least we still have our heads,” Lena added.

“What about Kircher’s Madonna and the skeleton?”

“We checked… before you came crashing back down to us.” Roland shook his head. “The grenade must have exploded at the feet of the Madonna. We found the bronze statue toppled on its side, crushed and charred.”

Lena sighed heavily. “The bones fared worse. Blasted to dust and burnt slivers. Still, we have what we collected earlier. Hopefully we can—”

A single gunshot cut her off, cracking loudly across the summit.

Roland swung toward the door, but Seichan burst past him, shoving Lena deeper inside the chapel.

Seichan pointed her pistol toward the stairs — then cursed brightly.

Roland shifted to a window, which offered a view down to the church courtyard. The dark form of a nun lay sprawled on the garden path. He caught a glimpse of a smaller shape vaulting over the fence and vanishing away.

“What’s wrong?” Lena asked.

Without any explanation, Seichan simply lunged out of the chapel and fled down the Holy Ladder toward the church.

Gray limped forward and headed after her. “Stay here,” he ordered them.

Left alone, Roland eyed Lena.

She bit her lip, then shook her head. “Screw that.”

While those might not be the words he would’ve chosen, he agreed with her sentiment. He had his fill with hiding in the shadows, waiting helplessly. Resolved, he and Lena headed out of the smoky chapel and into the sunlight. They ran together down the stairs.

Still, Seichan reached the courtyard well ahead of any of them. She dropped to a knee beside the sprawled body. It was Sister Clara. Seichan kept her weapon raised in one hand while checking the nun with her other hand.

Roland and Lena reached the courtyard only steps behind Gray, who wobbled on his feet from the exertion.

“What happened?” Gray asked, hurrying forward.

Seichan turned to them. Her face was a storm of emotions, most of them dark and angry. “That bitch used my own dagger,” she explained, clearly distraught. “Must’ve pulled it out of her leg and stabbed Sister Clara. I didn’t think to take it before going to check on you.”

Roland imagined Seichan’s concern for her partner had contributed to that lapse. He kneeled next to Sister Clara. He was relieved to see the young nun was still alive, but she was gravely wounded, her face a mask of pain. Blood soaked through her habit, rising around the steel hilt of a blade sticking out of her stomach.

“Tried to shoot her…” Clara wheezed, clutching Roland’s sleeve. “Too fast.”

“It’s okay,” he consoled her.

Clara’s eyes implored him. “Forgive me, Father.”

“There is nothing to forgive, my child.” Roland looked up at the others, unsure what to do.

Sirens sounded in the distance, rising up from the valley below. A pair of nuns pushed out of the rear door of the church. One carried a red plastic first-aid kit.

“We have to clear out of here,” Seichan warned, standing up.

Lena looked reluctant. “But Sister Clara…”

Roland gripped the nun’s fingers, also refusing to leave her side.

“I don’t think anything vital was hit,” Seichan said. “She should live until help arrives.”

Her words were callous, but Roland also heard the pain and guilt in her voice.

Fingers tightened on his hand. Sister Clara stared up at him, then to the others.

“Go,” she whispered weakly but with clear resolve. “Whatever those potwory were after, stop them.”

“I promise,” Roland said.

Lena also nodded.

With Clara’s permission granted, Roland stood and stepped aside, leaving the young nun to the care of her fellow sisters. He faced Gray and Seichan. He was uncertain where all of this would lead, but he held firm to one clear conviction.

I will not break that promise.

15

“Now where are they taking us?” Kowalski grumbled under his breath.

Maria shook her head, as much in the dark as he was. She sat next to the big man in the back of an electric cart that whisked through the depths of the subterranean complex. She noted Kowalski picking at the bandage on his face, remembering his story of Baako attacking him. She also remembered his furtive signal that undercut this story.

[I’m lying]

Worry for Baako burned in her gut, along with guilt. She pictured her little boy alone in this strange foreign place. He must be terrified. She wished she could go to him, console him, but that was not where they were headed at the moment.

After revealing the fossilized bones of the newly discovered hominin species—Homo meganthropus—Major General Jiaying Lau had ordered them to be transported to a new destination. The general sat in front beside the driver, talking on her cell phone. From her clipped and angry tones, it sounded like she was browbeating the caller.

Finally the electric cart slowed before a tall set of double doors. A familiar figure in camouflage-colored fatigues waited for them, standing stiffly, his expression stoic. It was Gao’s brother, Chang Sun.

Jiaying twisted in her seat to face them. “Remain here.”

The general climbed out of the cart and drew Chang several steps away.

“Where does she think we can go?” Kowalski said, slumping deeper in his seat.

A second cart pulled up behind them, carrying Dr. Dayne Arnaud and a pair of armed soldiers. Arnaud was prodded out of his cart and marched over to them. The paleontologist eyed the tall set of double doors. A steel track system ran along the ceiling and passed through the top of those doors.

Arnaud sighed. “It appears we are getting closer to the reason you were brought here, Dr. Crandall.”

Maria sensed the same. After seeing those remains, she knew the Chinese must be pursuing ways to harvest specific sequences of DNA from the giant’s bones, all in order to engineer a stronger soldier.

But how far along had they gotten?

Arnaud crossed his arms, likely worried about the same. “As I understand it, your research — and your sister’s — was all about proving that the Great Leap Forward in human intelligence was due to the introduction of new genes gained from the interbreeding of early man with Neanderthals.”

“That’s basically our hypothesis. That this hybridization produced a small tribe of individuals who were capable of greater intuitive leaps, who looked at the world differently than either of their parents.”

“And it was from these few unique souls that the Great Leap Forward was driven.”

She heard the incredulous tone in his voice and pushed back against it. “Multiple statistical models support such a theory. Knowledge is like a virus, capable of growing exponentially under the right circumstances. It would take the creativity and innovation of only a small population of super-enhanced individuals to alter the world: to spread new insights, to share new tools, to teach new methods of art and ritual. In fact, it’s one of the dangers of exploring this path. If such super-enhanced individuals could be engineered today, the result would be world-altering.”

“Or — ending,” Arnaud added, staring toward Jiaying. “Especially in the wrong hands?”

Maria understood.

“How close were you and your sister to achieving this goal?” he asked.

She pictured Baako, a model of that same Neanderthal hybridization, and the astounding learning curve he had already demonstrated. While she and Lena had made significant steps in that direction, much still remained unknown.

She admitted that aloud. “Genes that affect intelligence are still poorly understood and likely involve a complicated interaction of multiple sequences. What we are exploring is a new frontier.”

“But you and your sister are pioneers who have begun to blaze a trail into that territory.” His gaze remained on the pair of Chinese officers. “Now you must be wary of who follows.”

As Maria watched, the exchange between Jiaying and Chang grew more heated. She heard Lena’s name several times amid the flurry of Mandarin. Clearly something had gone wrong. But what did this mean for the fate of her sister?

Kowalski mumbled under his breath, “Sounds like the shit hit the fan out in Italy.” He crossed his arms with a slight satisfied sneer to his lips. “And I can guess who was throwing that shit around.”

“And you have no idea where they’ve gone?” Jiaying asked. She kept her arms crossed, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Chang to explain his latest failure.

He kept his head bowed, his silence answering her question.

The recent intelligence out of Italy was bleak. Not only had Lena Crandall slipped through the snare set up by Chang’s handpicked team, but SISMI — the Italian Intelligence and Military Security Service — had recovered the team’s bodies.

“The Italians may have their suspicions of who sent those men,” Chang said, “but we still have full deniability. The men I commissioned were ghosts, shadows with no official record with the People’s Liberation Army. And no locals were killed, so the matter can easily be spun as a terrorist attack against a Christian target.”

Though Chang’s assessment would likely prove correct in the long run, it still did not diminish his larger failure. Maria’s sister had once again escaped.

Knowing this, Chang attempted to dilute his culpability by spreading the blame wider. “If you had told me that you had an asset on site, perhaps the operation would’ve had a more positive outcome.”

Jiaying set her lips into a hard smile. “Duì,” she agreed. “But at least First Lieutenant Wei survived that assault, and she is in active pursuit of the targets as we speak.”

First Lieutenant Shu Wei was one of the youngest members of the Chengdu Military Region Special Forces, a unit code-named Falcon, which specialized in target acquisition, along with sabotage operations and offensive strikes. Shu Wei was also Jiaying’s niece, daughter to her sister. Jiaying had used her contacts in military intelligence to covertly enlist Shu Wei for this mission, to infiltrate and intervene as necessary.

Jiaying continued, “First Lieutenant Wei has also learned who is accompanying Lena Crandall and that Croatian priest. They’re Americans, likely a covert group tied to their military. From talking to a nun prior to your assault, Wei also learned what Lena’s group was searching for.”

“What was that?” Chang asked, his tone more subdued now.

“Information regarding a seventeenth-century priest named Athanasius Kircher.”

Chang frowned, plainly confused — as was Jiaying, but she maintained a passive expression as she continued.

“Wei will be pursuing this course. To determine how this unusual angle of investigation might threaten our goals… and to eliminate Lena Crandall.”

“But I thought we wanted to capture the geneticist alive.”

“After so many failures on your part, I’ve come to the conclusion that such a plan is too risky. To safely acquire her requires a delicacy that we can no longer afford. So Shu Wei is gathering a strike team from her own unit to hunt down and eliminate this threat once and for all.”

Chang straightened his back. “Then with my support, I’m sure—”

She turned on a heel, dismissing him. “That won’t be necessary. Clearly you have more than enough to handle on site here.”

She walked away, imagining his face going dark. She took a final moment to goad him further.

“With your attention fully focused here, I have confidence that you can at least keep our facility secure.” She glanced back to him. “Of course, any further failure will require a harsher reprimand.”

She nodded toward the double doors.

Though Chang’s face remained angry, his eyes shone with a measure of fear as his gaze flicked in that direction.

Good.

She turned to Maria and the others.

Now to teach these newcomers the consequences of failure.

Here comes trouble.

Kowalski watched the Chinese general stalk back over to their group. The woman looked much too pleased with herself for his liking.

“Come,” she said as she rejoined them. “Let me show you what we’ve accomplished — and how you might help.”

She waved for them to follow her while brusquely ordering their two armed escorts to fall in behind them.

“Guess this isn’t an optional tour,” Kowalski said to Maria as they set off after the general.

She didn’t respond, but he read the nervousness in her pale face. She fingered the tattoo of the double helix under her ear, marking her profession and likely the source of her worry. The Chinese wanted her genetic expertise for something — but what?

Jiaying crossed to the tall set of steel doors, which glided open before her. A puff of air washed out, bringing with it the musk of animals, along with the scent of antiseptic and bleach.

Beyond the threshold, a white room full of stainless steel equipment stretched half the length of a football field. One side held a towering wall of cages; along the other wall stretched a row of ten steel tables. The place reminded him of an oversize morgue. Except the closest pair of tables had been equipped with elevated stirrups, like something one might see in a gynecology office.

One of these tables appeared to have been recently used. A white-smocked worker was using a small hose to wash blood and tissue down the inclined table, jetting the gore into a stainless steel bucket at one end. Even more disturbing, stacks of glass jars were lined on a counter behind the table. Organs floated inside, including what appeared to be an oversize heart.

Kowalski swallowed back his disgust and looked away.

As they entered, technicians scurried about performing other chores, most of which seemed to involve getting clear of Major General Lau’s way.

Maria studied the stainless steel cages to the other side. Several held what Kowalski would expect to see in such a research lab: white rats twitching pink noses at them; a pen of rabbits; and a lone chimpanzee who huddled near the back of a larger cage. The latter’s arms had been shaved to his pits, along with the crown of his head.

Before Kowalski could even wonder about the reason for such a haircut, the answer appeared in the next cage. A young chimp stared at them, its large brown eyes tracking them as they passed. Eyes were all the poor creature could move. A perforated steel shelf had been clamped around its neck, clearly meant to immobilize it and to keep it from reaching higher than its shoulders. The need for such a restraint was obvious. The top of the chimp’s skull was missing, exposing the surface of its brain. A pincushion of colored electrodes protruded from that moist pink surface, wired to equipment hanging outside the cage. A small whimper continually flowed from its lips, which were stretched tautly over its teeth.

“Motherfu—” he started, then clamped his mouth shut as General Lau glanced back to them. Now was not the time to offend their host — at least not yet.

“It’s a vivisection lab,” Maria whispered, her eyes glassy with shock and maybe a few tears.

In the next cage, a small ape — maybe an infant gorilla — clung to a wooden pillar with a ratty rug tacked to it, as if the object were its mother.

The Frenchman slowed enough to look closer at the tiny figure, its frightened face tucked hard to its only solace in this place of horrors. Arnaud’s brow furrowed as he cast Maria a worried look, but before he could speak General Lau hurried them deeper into the lab.

“This way,” she insisted.

Her goal appeared to be a large window at the far end of the lab. It encompassed the entire back wall. A larger chamber, lit from above, opened beyond the thick glass.

They were marched forward.

“Thanks to the techniques you and your sister perfected, Dr. Crandall,” General Lau said, “see what we’ve been able to accomplish already.”

As they reached the window, Kowalski stepped closer, flanked by Maria and Dr. Arnaud. He stared down into the cavernous space and couldn’t hold back an outburst this time.

“You motherfuckers…”

Monk sat with Kimberly Moy on a bench in the parklands that bordered the Nanchang River. The dark waterway, lit by occasional streetlamps, cut directly through the center of the Beijing Zoo. Nearby, a ferry stop, closed at this hour, offered tours through the park and out to the Summer Palace. Monk had a nice view along the river’s course, which was periodically forded by arched stone bridges.

“What do you think?” Monk asked softly.

Kimberly rubbed her calf. It had been a hard three hours of walking: first through the park, then afterward on a slow circuit around the outside. They had finally reached the northernmost edge of the park, having made almost a complete circle around the zoo grounds.

Without looking up, she said, “Definitely one of the Chinese army’s newer helicopters. A Z-18A utility chopper, if I’m not mistaken, for transporting troops and cargo.”

Definitely large enough to haul a crated gorilla.

Monk had noted the helicopter parked on a pad in this nondescript corner of the park, not far from the zoo’s large aquarium building. From outside the fence, he had only caught glimpses of the aircraft’s bulk. Trying not to arouse suspicion, they had continued to this riverside park and settled on the bench, where they still had a patchy view of the military chopper.

“Lots of activity going on over there,” Monk commented.

Over the past ten minutes, they had watched uniformed men come and go, mostly loading crates into the back of the helicopter. They seemed to be readying to take off. Fearing the Chinese might be moving the kidnapped party again, Monk kept close watch for any sign of an armed escort leading a group toward the aircraft.

“Wish I could get closer,” Monk mumbled. “To make sure they’re not already aboard.”

“And do what?” Kimberly asked. “That area is crawling with personnel. Until we get verification that the kidnapped party is still here, you’d only risk exposing yourself for no good reason.”

She was right, but he hated sitting idly, waiting for some sign.

A loud trundling sound drew his attention to the neighboring road. A large armored personnel carrier, emblazoned with a prominent red star, sped past them and skidded to a stop before the northern gate into the park. Soldiers offloaded out the back, while another popped up through a roof hatch to man a heavy artillery gun. The troops spread out before the gate. Shortly thereafter, two pairs of soldiers began to march off in either direction, clearly beginning to canvass the zoo’s perimeters.

Monk imagined the other gates of the park were being similarly bolstered and guarded.

He nudged Kimberly. “How’s that for a sign that our friends are still holed up somewhere on those grounds?”

She nodded. “But it may also be a sign that Chinese intelligence knows that we’re here. Or at least suspects something.”

She took his hand. He knew what she was silently telling him.

Time to go.

Monk stood up with her and began retreating through the riverside parkway as a pair of the soldiers strode toward their position. He kept close to Kimberly, playing the casual tourist. Hand in hand, they ambled along the river, heading away from the zoo grounds. Monk kept the collar of his jacket up and his face turned away from the soldiers. At any moment, he expected to hear a shout, an order to stop, but instead a roaring grew behind him, accompanied by the familiar bell-beat of heavy rotors.

“Don’t look,” Kimberly said, squeezing his hand.

Monk felt no need to glance over his shoulder. He could readily picture the helicopter rising from its concrete pad and climbing into the night sky. He didn’t know if Kowalski and Maria were aboard that aircraft, but he still felt a sinking sense of defeat in his gut.

With no other path open to them, Monk and Kimberly continued away from the zoo, driven off by the soldiers. Even if Kowalski and Maria were still on the premises, with the park being locked down now by the full force of the Chinese military, the prospect of rescuing them grew slimmer.

“What now?” Kimberly asked.

“We wait,” he said, not liking his answer. “We have to hope Kat and Director Crowe can get some new blip from that GPS tracker. Otherwise, we’re screwed.”

Earlier, he had fielded a call from Painter, who had informed him that the extraction team for this operation had landed in Beijing, arriving on different flights from various routes. The five commandos were slowly gathering at a rendezvous point, in anticipation of the go-ahead from Monk about a rescue mission.

He scowled.

Looks like we’ll all be waiting a bit longer.

Once far enough away, Monk looked back toward the zoo.

What the hell is going on over there?

Maria struggled to understand what she was seeing.

It can’t be…

She stood with Kowalski and Arnaud before a curved set of windows that overlooked a habitat the size of a basketball arena. The space appeared to be dug out of the native rock, with the walls pocked by dark caves. But her focus remained fixed to the bottom of the pit.

Three stories below her, massive hairy beasts shambled or squatted amid faux leafless trees made of concrete, several of which looked to have been broken into pieces by the habitat’s occupants. Each figure appeared to tower eight to nine feet in height, likely massing out at half a ton each, easily twice the size of the typical mountain gorilla. Their legs looked as thick around as tree trunks, their arms only a little thinner. A few lumbered about by leaning on their knuckles, but the largest stood upright, exposing its full height and the silver hue to its coat. It stared up at them and bared its teeth in a silent roar, exposing yellowed fangs as long as an outstretched hand.

The silverback stood guard over a recent kill, clearly feeling threatened by the onlookers. The torn body at its feet still had bits of a shredded uniform, not unlike the coveralls of the workers she’d seen here.

Before she could look away, the upraised beast reached back, grabbed something, and flung it toward them. She fell back a step as it struck the window, both astounded at the display of strength and horrified at the sight of the severed arm slapping against the window and sliding down in a bloody smear across the glass.

The violent act broke through her shock.

“What… what is this?” she asked.

Major General Lau answered, “We call it the Ark, a crucible to observe our creations. It’s not unlike your classroom back at the primate center.”

Maria refused to accept such a comparison. She gave a small shake of her head, trying to clear her dismay. “They’re gorillas…”

“Hybrids,” Jiaying corrected needlessly.

Maria had already recognized that these were not ordinary apes. She remembered studying that massive skull of the prehistoric gorilla, Gigantopithecus blacki. These creatures were comparable in size and shape, but she knew what lurked below was not that monstrous species brought back to life.

Arnaud spoke up, allowing Maria a moment to get her bearings. “I can only imagine that to create these specimens, you must have spliced in DNA from that Meganthropus specimen you showed us earlier.”

Jiaying bowed her head in agreement. “To accomplish that, we used various techniques, refining them over the years through trial and error. We eventually employed protocols developed by the Crandalls, which accelerated our program. But whereas Maria and her sister extracted Neanderthal DNA to create their hybrid, we sequenced the genes from the bones of Meganthropus.” She waved to the window. “Still, like the Crandalls, we chose to use gorillas for our initial model. The results are as remarkable as we had hoped. Even the musculature of these specimens has proven to be extraordinarily powerful: easily twice that of a typical gorilla, and ten times that of an ordinary man.”

Maria’s breathing grew heavier with dismay and horror. The general’s cold words echoed in her head: We even employed protocols developed by the Crandalls.

She stared down as the massive silverback bent over its kill and lifted what appeared to be a chunk of liver to its muzzle, gnashing into it.

What have Lena and I done?

“Of course before we move into human studies,” Jiaying continued, “we must iron out several key issues.”

Maria glanced to her. “What issues?”

“The beasts here have proven to be more savage than a typical gorilla, often killing each other unless we provide them with an ample food supply.”

Maria recalled the story of the Meganthropus tribes, how they had preyed upon neighboring clans, along with their own people. It seemed the geneticists here hadn’t just passed on that tribe’s genetic brawn to these hybrids, but also its cannibalistic ferocity.

Maybe the two even run hand in hand.

Jiaying fixed those cold eyes upon Maria. “That is why we need your help. To find a way to balance what we’ve accomplished here with the heightened intelligence you’ve instilled into your research subject.”

Maria pictured the gentle soul of Baako. She could not ever imagine finding a way to balance his sweetness with what crouched inside this bloody Ark.

She said as much aloud. “To accomplish what you’re asking, it would take filtering through hundreds of different variables, not to mention an untold number of epigenetic factors that could further complicate matters. It could take decades of trial and error to achieve such a goal, if it could even be done at all.”

“So we believed, too,” Jiaying admitted. “It was why we continued to fund you and your sister’s research through back channels.”

Facilitated by Amy Wu, Maria thought bitterly.

Jiaying straightened her back. “Then we got word of Dr. Arnaud’s discovery in the mountains of Croatia.”

Arnaud looked equally offended that his research could be connected in any way to the horror show here. “What does my discovery have to do with all of this?”

“Because of the genetic possibility locked in those bones, the bones of a first-generation hybrid between early man and Neanderthals. If we could successfully harvest DNA from those remains, we would have a chance to search and isolate the specific genetic factors that heightened such a hybrid’s intelligence.”

Maria crossed her arms, realizing the woman was likely right. With access to such unique DNA, defining and extracting the specific code that lay at the core of mankind’s evolutionary Great Leap Forward could be possible.

Or at least vastly accelerated.

Maria began to understand the scope of all of this. Whoever controlled this rare genetic repository would have a great advantage in the bioengineering arms race that was sweeping the globe. Those bones could prove to be the Holy Grail of the next stage of human evolution. And it wasn’t just the Chinese. Even DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office had set a goal to unlock the genetic code of human intelligence.

No wonder the Chinese had acted so quickly and so harshly. The endgame here was not about a single country’s dominance; it was about controlling the very reins of mankind’s future.

“And then there’s Baako,” Jiaying added, drawing back Maria’s full attention.

Kowalski also reacted, his face hardening. “What about him?”

Jiaying returned her attention to the window. “Besides the aggression issue, we ran into another difficulty, a reproductive problem. While the female hybrids are fertile, all the males are sterile.”

Maria knew this was not unusual. Hybrids between closely related species were often infertile, like the mating of a donkey and a horse, which produces a mule. Male mules are uniformly sterile, while the females are sometimes still fertile.

Arnaud brought up a detail even more relevant to the situation. “Most paleontologists believe the same might be true for Neanderthal hybrids. The males were probably sterile, whereas the females could still perhaps produce viable offspring.”

“If this is correct,” Maria added, “it would mean the Neanderthal genes we humans carry today had to come from those hybrid females, not the males.”

“And that’s why Baako is so important,” Jiaying said. “I understand that your research subject has been tested and found to be capable of reproducing.”

Maria held up her hand. “Not necessarily. So far, genetically it appears that is the case, but we can’t know with absolute certainty, since Baako is only three years old. He’s still sexually immature. It will take another three or four years before we can definitively judge his fertility.”

“Perhaps,” Jiaying countered, “but we’re not looking for Baako to mate physically. We only need to sequence that reproductive viability locked in his Y chromosome. Of course, even more important are those unique Neanderthal genes that have been shown to enhance his intelligence.”

Maria felt a sinking feeling in her gut.

Poor Baako…

“Then again,” Jiaying continued, “we could have gained all of that from a few cheek swabs and blood samples. And that’s exactly what we’ll do, along with bone marrow biopsies. But his true value lies in our being able to access the unique architecture of his brain. It could prove invaluable to have a living subject to study and analyze in regard to the expression of those unique genes.”

“You intend to study his brain?” She pictured the series of MRIs that had been performed on Baako since he was an infant. “To see how it develops further?”

“Correct. But you and your sister have been too conservative in your approach. We believe a more invasive study will bring us more comprehensive results.” Jiaying glanced back to the chimpanzee whose exposed brain was wired with electrodes. “We’ve found we can keep such specimens alive for up to two years. And in a larger subject, we believe we can extend that time frame by at least twofold.”

Maria realized they intended to perform the same surgery on Baako. “No,” she blurted out. “I won’t allow it.”

“It will happen whether you allow it or not. The veterinary surgeons are preparing everything as we speak.”

“When?” she asked weakly.

“He’ll be taken to surgery in the morning, after he’s had the night to rest from his travels.”

Desperate, Maria sought any way to stop this from happening. “If… if you do that, I won’t cooperate with any further work. You’ll have to shoot me.”

Jiaying flicked her gaze to Kowalski. “If it comes to that, you won’t be the first I shoot. And I’ll not be as merciful as I was with Professor Wrightson.”

Maria glanced to Kowalski.

He shrugged. “Let them do their worst.”

Despite his bravado, she saw the tip of his tongue lick his bottom lip, a nervous tic.

But Jiaying was not finished. She nodded to their armed escort and force-marched them back to the wall of cages. They stopped before the chimpanzee, which mewled in fear and distress. Jiaying reached to a piece of equipment hanging outside the cage and twisted a dial.

The chimpanzee jerked in its restraints, an ear-splitting screech bursting from its small chest. Its eyes were wide, protruding from its skull, likely blinded by pain.

“Stop it!” Maria yelled.

Jiaying simply stood there, oblivious to the suffering.

Another was not.

Kowalski suddenly lunged backward, faster than she could have imagined. He barreled into one of the guards and hooked an arm over the rifle barrel. Though the weapon still remained strapped to the guard’s shoulder, Kowalski reached back enough to pull the trigger.

The rifle blasted loudly.

The round shot between the cage bars and exploded half of the chimp’s skull. The screaming cut off and the body slumped, hanging limply by its neck.

Kowalski immediately lifted his arms high and stepped to the side. Both rifles pointed at him. Even Jiaying had her own pistol in hand. Maria waited for the man to be executed.

Instead, Jiaying holstered her weapon. “I see your zookeeper has as tender a heart as you.” The general faced Maria. “But he will not be able to help you with Baako. If you wish the animal to be kept as comfortable as possible throughout all of this, I will expect not only cooperation from you — but also results.”

She waved for the guards to escort the group from the lab.

“It’s been a long night,” Jiaying said. “You’ll be taken to your room.”

Maria resisted. “Wait! I want to see Baako. To spend this last night with him.”

Jiaying stared hard at her.

“Please,” she begged.

“If you do any harm to him,” she warned, glancing back to the dead chimpanzee, “even an inappropriate act of mercy, another will take his place.”

Jiaying turned her gaze upon Kowalski.

Maria hadn’t even considered committing such an act, so she simply nodded.

“I want to go, too,” Kowalski said, touching his bandaged face. “To help keep Baako calm, to protect Dr. Crandall if necessary.”

Jiaying sighed, plainly done with arguing. “So be it. I’ll have bedding brought to you. But know that you will be watched throughout the night.”

Maria reached and touched her fingertips to Kowalski’s hand, silently thanking him. As soon as they passed through the gliding doors of the vivisection lab, everything suddenly struck her at once, overwhelming her.

What are we going to do? How can I face Baako, knowing what is going to happen to him in the morning?

Her legs weakened; her knees began to shake.

Then a strong arm slid around her waist, keeping her upright.

“We’ll get through this,” Kowalski whispered.

“How?” She looked up at him.

He shrugged. “No idea.”

“Then what—”

“Just thought that’s what you needed to hear.”

Oddly, she was strangely comforted by his honesty.

He half lifted her into the waiting electric cart. “Let’s go check on that big kid.”

Baako spots his mother as soon as the double doors open. Joy bursts in his heart at the sight of her. He bounds to the bars and clings to them, hooting at her, letting her know how happy he is.

As she draws closer, she hugs her fists to her body in a sign he knows well.

[I love you]

He drops from the bars, bouncing on his back legs, and repeats her sign.

[Baako loves Mama]

She smiles but not as big as usual. He sees sadness in the corners of her eyes. He sniffs and catches a whiff of her fear. It makes him slap his upper arm with his other hand. He does this only when scared.

She sees this and taps her wrists together.

[You’re safe]

She waits for one of the bad men to open the door. He hates the smell of these others. A long black stick pokes between the bars and spits fire at Baako. He fears it and drops back, but he growls deep in his chest and shows his teeth.

Finally the door swings wide and Mama enters. She comes with another, the big man who can talk with his hands. Yesterday Mama signed his name in letters [J-O-E]. It was back at home, where Baako had his television, his bed, his toys, and his best friend, Tango.

Baako is glad Tango is not in this bad place.

Mama comes and puts her arm around him. She squeezes and makes sounds that are warm and full of love. He hoots softly back to her. She leans back. He sees tears on her face. She wipes them with one hand, but more come. She turns away. He chuffs at her, reaching to her cheek with the back of his hand.

Mama likes when he does this.

But she does not smile now and does not kiss him on the nose. Instead, more tears roll from her eyes.

He lowers his arm, then the big man — Joe — squats before him, leaning on the knuckles of a hand like Baako. With his other hand, he signs and speaks the same.

[Are you okay?]

Baako shakes his head. He turns so Mama can’t see and waves his fingers in front of his chest. [Scared]

Joe moves closer. His big hands shape words.

[We’ll be brave together… you and me]

Joe points to Mama.

[For her… okay]

Baako nods and repeats the last gesture. [For Mama]

A large hand reaches to Baako’s shoulders. Strong fingers squeeze hard — but Baako knows it is not meant to hurt him. Baako stares into the man’s eyes, then presses his two fists together, stirring them between them.

[Together]

Joe grins and speaks words that Baako knows. “That’s right.”

By now, the bad men have left, but they had tossed in two curled-up rolls. They are red and smell like feathers. It reminds Baako of his pillows back home. Mama once scolded him for using his teeth to rip the pillows open to get at those feathers.

Mama and Joe untie the rolls, shaking them so they spread long.

Curious, Baako nudges between the two.

Mama signs to him, leaning her head on an open palm.

[They are beds]

Baako coughs, disbelieving her. Sometimes Mama teases him. Still, she shows him a zipper. He tries it himself, pulling it back and forth.

Joe says something that makes Mama laugh. It is good to hear. Joe then shows Baako how to unzip one of the beds. Once it’s open, the man slides his body inside, limbs and all, and pretends to sleep.

Baako sniffs at the edges, while Joe and Mama talk too fast for him to understand, but he perks up whenever he hears his name. Mama eventually gets him to eat some more bananas; then she wiggles into her own bed.

Baako stares at the two of them, picking at a zipper.

Joe pulls a hand from under his bed and pats the space between him and Mama.

Baako understands and carefully steps there. He circles a few times, making Joe grunt when he accidentally steps on him. Then Baako settles down, curling between them.

Mama kisses him on the forehead like she always does at night. He wiggles closer to her, and she puts her arm around him. He sighs in contentment.

For the first time here, he feels safe.

Still, he snakes a hand toward Joe.

The man’s eyes shine in the dark back at him. Then with a low grumble, a big hand slips out between the zippers and finds Baako’s hand. Fingers wrap around his fingers. They squeeze once, then relax — but don’t let go.

Joe shakes his head, burrowing deeper. Muffled words flow out. “Happy now?”

Baako stares at their joined fingers, reading the silent message there, as clear as any moving arms and hands. It is one word and a promise.

[Together]

He closes his eyes and answers Joe with his heart.

Yes.

16

“We believe the Chinese still have Kowalski and Maria Crandall stashed somewhere on the zoo property,” Painter said over the secure line.

With the phone by his ear, Gray stood at a third-story window of the Pontifical Gregorian University. The vacant office belonged to one of Roland’s old colleagues, another medieval historian who was on sabbatical at the moment. After escaping the mountains, Roland had suggested holing up here to regroup for the afternoon and assess what to do next. The priest also wanted to use the university’s vast library to research something that he believed could be important to all of this.

Gray had used the time to report to Sigma headquarters. “What about that GPS tracker?” he asked. “Have you been able to pick up any more pings off of it?”

“No, but considering the heightened military presence around the zoo, the Chinese are likely aware that we know of their involvement. At least, that’s Kat’s assessment after hearing from Monk.”

Gray was sure Kat was worried about her husband — and with good reason. Monk’s face was not one that would exactly blend in with the populace of Beijing.

Concerned, Gray asked, “So what’s Monk’s next move?”

“I’ve ordered him and his partner to hang back, to avoid arousing further suspicion. Kat is doing what she can through back channels to learn more. But at the moment, we’re in the dark about the particulars behind their attack on U.S. soil.”

Not to mention the assaults out here.

Gray’s face and limbs were covered with a patchwork of small bandages, and what wasn’t covered felt bruised and battered. He tried to make sense of it all.

“The Chinese clearly wanted those bones discovered in the Croatian cavern,” he said. “And somehow it’s connected to the Crandalls’ research into the genetic source of human intelligence.”

“That’s likely true. We know the Chinese were secretly funding the Crandalls’ research, bankrolling it through an operative in the National Science Foundation, Dr. Amy Wu. But beyond that, we’re operating in the dark. We need to know what was so important about those bones. It seems that discovery set all of this in motion.”

“We’re working on some leads out here,” Gray said. He had already informed Painter about what they had found at the Sanctuary of Mentorella and its connection to Father Athanasius Kircher. “At the moment, the Chinese are pursuing this matter purely from a scientific perspective, but we may be able to learn more by following the historical bread crumbs left behind by Kircher.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“Because Kircher was clearly onto something, something he deemed important enough to preserve, yet alarming enough to make sure it was kept well hidden. If we could learn what that was, we might get a jump on the Chinese — or if nothing else, we could gain a better understanding of their interest in those bones and the Crandalls’ research.”

“You might as well do what you can,” Painter said, though his voice sounded doubtful. “Right now we’re in a standoff, so I suppose any new intelligence could prove useful.”

“I’ll keep you updated.”

Gray signed off, but he remained at the window, studying the streets below. It didn’t appear they had been followed out of the mountains, but he knew one of the Chinese team — a woman — had survived, fleeing on foot. Kat had been monitoring local law enforcement chatter coming from the area. It seemed a farmer outside the village of Guadagnolo had reported the theft of a motorbike from his barn.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

He searched the roads below the window for that stolen motorbike, but every other vehicle was either a Vespa or some other cycle. As he stood at his post, he noted an upper-story window to his right. The facade of bricks around its frame were slightly blackened, and the panes of glass had been recently replaced. He could almost hear that old explosion from months ago. The window marked the former offices of Monsignor Vigor Verona, an archivist for the Vatican and a professor at this university.

A sense of foreboding settled over Gray’s shoulders, remembering the loss of his dear friend — and, of course, Vigor’s niece. A pang of guilt lanced through him.

Rachel…

A hand touched his shoulder, making him flinch. He had not even heard Seichan approach. He had thought she was in the next room, keeping watch on Lena as the woman napped on a couch.

Seichan wrapped an arm around his waist and turned him from the window. She stared deep into his eyes, easily reading him, knowing his regrets.

“My mother once told me the world is full of ghosts,” she whispered. “And the longer you live, the more haunted you become.”

“Mine just told me to sit up straight and keep my elbows off the table.”

Seichan only sighed at his attempt to defuse the moment. She leaned up and pressed her lips to his mouth, silencing him. He felt the warmth of her, tasted her, inhaling the slight hint of jasmine off her skin. She withdrew enough to speak, her breathy words rising between them.

“The ghosts are there to remind us that we still live, that we still have hearts that beat, flesh that burns, lungs that gasp for air.” She let her lips brush his again. “Never forget that… or those deaths have no meaning.”

Gray pulled her closer, held her tighter, felt her heartbeat against his ribs as he kissed her deeply.

I won’t forget.

A key rattled in the door lock behind them. Gray broke free of their embrace, his hand settling to his holstered pistol. Seichan took a step away, a steel dagger already glinting in her fingertips. The door swung open, revealing the disheveled form of Father Novak.

Struggling with an armload of books, Roland failed to note their wary stances. “I think I found something that might be important.”

The commotion woke Lena, startling her into an immediate panic. With her heart pounding, she shifted up on an elbow on the sofa. She recognized Roland’s excited voice rising from the next room.

He must have learned something.

Earlier, she had wanted to go with him when he left — if nothing else, to see the famous Gregorian library for herself — but the stacks of rare books that he had intended to search were off-limits to the public.

She rubbed her eyes, surprised that she had actually fallen asleep, if only for a brief and fitful time. When she had first tried closing her eyes, she was certain her fear for her sister would keep her awake.

Must be more exhausted than I thought.

She glanced at the slit-like window of this small private space of Roland’s colleague. It was little bigger than a closet, with a sofa and a small prayer bench under a cross. It felt less like an office space than a monastic space for contemplation.

Drawn by the excitement she heard in Roland’s voice, she stood and crossed to the door. In the next room, a small desk stood under a larger window, which was flanked by tall bookcases full of dusty volumes. In the center of the room rested a wide library table, with a cluster of mismatched chairs around it. The lingering odor of old pipe smoke and tobacco was stronger in here, as if Roland’s colleague had just stepped out.

“Come see this,” Roland called to her, stacking books on the library table. “If I’m right, it’s simply amazing.”

Stoked by the fervor in his voice and manner, Lena’s interest quickened.

Roland reached into his jacket and carefully removed the old journal of Father Kircher, the one found inside the bronze Madonna at the chapel. He reverently placed it on the table next to the other books. The gilt labyrinth shone in the sunlight streaming through the window.

Gray joined them at the table while Seichan remained near the window, her eyes on the streets below. The woman’s guarded manner was a reminder of the threat that still hung over their heads. It dampened Lena’s curiosity, but only slightly. She knew the best way she could help Maria was to piece together the mystery behind all of this.

She stared at Kircher’s journal, suspecting the answers might be found within those old pages. While driving to Rome, she had managed to get a brief look inside. The pages were scrawled with a meticulous script, all in Latin, set amid pictures, maps, and pages full of numbers.

“So were you able to learn anything from Kircher’s journal?” she asked.

Roland frowned. “Actually I’ve barely had a chance to give it more than a cursory review. It will take many hours, if not weeks, to fully understand the message locked within these pages. But I have made some headway.”

“Then what were you looking for in the library?” Gray asked. “You never made that clear.”

“I wanted to research that map inscribed on the inside shell of the bronze Madonna.” Roland pulled out his iPad from his satchel and placed it on the table. “It looked familiar. I recognized it from an earlier work by Father Kircher.”

Roland woke up the device and pulled up the photo that Lena had taken of the map.

It showed what appeared to be an island, with crudely delineated rivers and a couple of mountains.

“What’s that supposed to represent?” Gray asked.

Roland looked up, his face brimming with amazement. “You won’t believe unless I take you through it. I hardly believe it myself.”

Lena shifted closer. “Tell us.”

Roland tapped the iPad screen. “I recognized this map as soon as I saw it. A fuller version can be found in Kircher’s volume, Mundus Subterraneus.”

Lena remembered Roland showing them pictures from the Jesuit priest’s book, a volume full of illustrations both practical and fantastic.

“Let me find it.” Roland sifted through the records he had stored on the device concerning Father Kircher, including a full collection of his books. “Here it is.”

They all stared down at a map copied from one of the pages of Mundus Subterraneus.

The island featured in the center was definitely the same one carved into the bronze shell. Only here there were more details, including names and a legend at the top, written in Latin.

Lena couldn’t decipher much, except for the name written on the island in the center. “Is that what I think it is?”

Roland grinned and read the legend at the top. “Situs Insulae Atlantidis, a Mari olim absorpte ex mente Egyptiorum et Platonis descriptio. Or translated, ‘Site of the island of Atlantis, in the sea, from Egyptian sources and Plato’s description.’ ”

“This is meant to be Atlantis?” The incredulity in Gray’s voice was easy to hear.

“That’s right. According to what Kircher wrote in Mundus Subterraneus, this map was compiled from charts found on ancient papyruses he had discovered during his research concerning Egypt and from information gleaned from Plato’s writings. By Plato’s account, this island was home to a technologically superior race, a people who were also great teachers. Similarly, the Egyptian papyruses also spoke of the godlike residents of this island, who came bearing gifts of knowledge and wisdom, teaching the most ancient pharaohs.”

Lena recognized how much this sounded like her and her sister’s theory: that mankind’s Great Leap Forward was propelled by a small group of unique individuals.

“You must understand,” Roland continued, “the legend of these great and mysterious teachers is not limited to the Greeks and Egyptians. Ancient Sumerian texts also make mention of the existence of a race of tall beings whom they called Watchers. You’ll find these same Watchers mentioned in Jewish texts, even the Bible. But the most pertinent account comes from the Book of Enoch. According to that ancient text, it was a Watcher named Uriel who taught Enoch about the movement of the stars. The same text names other Watchers, along with the sciences they taught.”

He pulled one of the books from the pile, opened to a tagged page, and read aloud from it. “ ‘Semjaza taught enchantments and the cutting of roots… Baraqijal astrology… Kokabel the constellations… Araqiel the signs of the earth… and Sariel the course of the moon.’ ”

Roland lowered the book. “So you see this same mythology persists throughout ancient cultures.” He turned to Lena. “And in regards to your research into hybrid species of early man, the Dead Sea Scrolls references the interbreeding of these Watchers with other humans, mentioning children born of those unions.”

Lena swallowed, taking it all in. In her mind’s eye, she put flesh on the bones of Kircher’s Eve, wondering if these ancient hybrids between Neanderthal and early man might be the source of such legends.

Intrigued, she asked, “So did Father Kircher come to believe Eve was one of these Atlanteans, these ancient Watchers? Is that why he inscribed that map inside the bronze shell that housed her bones?”

“Possibly. Think about it. After the Madonna was sealed closed, Eve’s empty eye sockets would have forever looked upon that island, a place Kircher might have believed was Eve’s former homeland.”

“But that’s a pretty large leap for Kircher to make,” Gray commented. “To tie these bones to the mythology of Atlantis.”

Lena disagreed and pointed to the sculpture of the moon resting on the library table next to Roland’s satchel. “Kircher stole that from the prehistoric sculpture garden we found in those caves. Like us, he surely recognized that whatever people lived in those caves were much further advanced than anyone could expect or imagine. Remember how Kircher mistook the bones of a mammoth to be the remains of some extinct species of giant? It would not be hard for him to make a similar fantastical conclusion in regards to these bones.”

“Only in this case,” Roland said, his eyes gleaming, “the reverend father may have been correct.”

Lena turned to him, unable to hold back her own disbelief this time. “What are you talking about? How can that be?”

Roland looked down at the map glowing on the screen, then back at all of them. “Because I know the location of Atlantis.”

Roland took a small amount of guilty pleasure at their shocked expressions. “Like I said, let me walk you through it all. Then you’ll better understand the message left by Father Kircher.”

He tapped and zoomed in on the island of Atlantis found in Mundus Subterraneus.

“If you look at the compass rose on the reverend father’s map, you’ll see the arrow is pointing downward, indicating this chart was drawn with north pointing down and south up.”

“The reverse of most maps,” Lena commented.

“That’s right, and it wasn’t unusual for that time period to have maps occasionally drawn in this manner.” He danced his fingertips across the screen of his iPad and brought up a picture he had rendered while down in the university library. “I took the liberty of flipping the map around and labeling the surrounding continents in English.”

He showed the others the result.

Gray studied it for a breath. “If I’m looking at this right, it appears the island of Atlantis is drawn somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic… or at least somewhere between North America and Europe.”

“Which supports what Plato wrote in his dialogue Timaeus.” Roland grabbed a copy of the Greek book from his pile and read from a marked passage. “As Plato describes it, Atlantis lies beyond ‘the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules’… which in modern times are the Straits of Gibraltar.”

“Placing Atlantis outside the Mediterranean,” Gray commented.

“Correct.” He pointed down at the book in his hand. “But Plato also states here that this island is ‘larger than Libya and Asia put together.’ ”

Gray frowned. “That would make Atlantis less of an island and more like a continent.”

“And what continent lies outside the Straits of Gibraltar and close to North America?”

Gray rubbed his chin. “The only other continent out there is South America.”

“Exactly.”

Gray lifted his brows skeptically. “So you’re claiming the island of Atlantis is actually the continent of South America?” He pointed to Kircher’s map on the screen. “While I can appreciate that the coastline of this island does resemble South America, it’s drawn in the middle of the Atlantic.”

Roland understood his hesitation, having gone through the same intellectual cartwheels himself. “You have to keep in mind,” he warned, “that what’s illustrated here was derived from older maps. So perhaps those ancient cartographers got the continent aligned wrong, or maybe they put it there as a place of prominence, to better highlight the features of that landmass.”

Roland reached to his iPad and brought up another pair of images he had created. “If you look at these side-by-side silhouettes that I compiled, you can see the resemblance is more than just the coastlines. Even the river deltas and mountains seem to match up between the two.”

“He’s right,” Lena said, leaning closer, comparing the two maps. “The Amazon… the Orinoco… and the other major rivers. They do line up.”

Gray waved dismissively. “Still, it makes no sense. If South America was once Atlantis — home to some great empire of godlike teachers — how come there’s no evidence of their prior existence?”

“Who says there’s not?” Roland pulled a recent archaeology magazine from his stack of books and slapped it on the table. “In early 2015, a team of Honduran archaeologists, aided by British SAS soldiers, discovered the ruins of a lost city buried in the rain forest. They believe they had found Ciudad Blanca, the legendary White City of Gold, a complex built by a mysterious pre-Columbian civilization that vanished long ago. The only firsthand account of this city came from a conquistador, Hernán Cortés, in letters to the Spanish king back in 1526. He told the story of a miraculous place whose inhabitants were said to be descended from a Monkey God, and whose children still bore monkey-like features.”

“Monkey-like features.” Lena straightened, a thoughtful expression fixed on her face. “If some conquistadors did encounter an existing tribe of hominins — or even hybrids like Eve — I could see them mistaking them for some relation to primitive primates.”

“And that’s only one story,” Roland said. “Satellite mapping and ground-penetrating radar is slowly stripping away what’s hidden under the jungles of that continent, revealing layer upon layer of ancient civilizations, some ruins predating the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas by millennia.”

Gray continued to look unconvinced. “You actually believe one of these lost civilizations was the home of the Watchers?”

“Possibly. If this civilization was advanced enough in navigation and sailing, they could’ve periodically sent out emissaries, offering new tools, teaching new techniques. Maybe some settled in foreign lands, had children, and became assimilated into the many ancient cultures.” Roland tapped the map on the screen. “Or maybe here was where they eventually retreated and hid.”

Lena slowly nodded her head. Still, she had one more concern. “But didn’t Plato describe Atlantis being destroyed, sunk under the sea? As far as I can tell, South America is still there.”

Roland waved a hand across the books before him. “You must take into account that these Greek and Egyptian stories were written by people who could not truly fathom something as large as a continent in the oceans beyond the straits of Gibraltar. Also, upon closer reading, the cataclysm described by Plato actually sounds more like the sinking of an island city, or possibly an isolated piece of a larger landmass that was destroyed by earthquakes and flooding.”

“Still,” Gray pressed, “even if Father Kircher believed those bones he interred under that chapel belonged to Eve and had a connection to these ancient Watchers, where do all these conjectures about South America get us?”

Roland smiled. “They get us to that city, to that lost home of the Watchers, to the very heart of the mystery that Kircher spent the last eleven years of his life investigating — all of which may help explain why the Chinese stole those bones and kidnapped Lena’s sister.”

Gray sighed, hearing in Roland’s last words an echo of his earlier conversation with Painter Crowe: how following the historical path left by Athanasius Kircher might lead to the very answers they needed to get an upper hand on the Chinese.

With a measure of impatience, he motioned for Roland to continue, sensing the priest had more to reveal. “Go on,” he ordered. “If Kircher spent the last eleven years of his life secretly studying this mystery, what else did he discover?”

“It wasn’t so much what he discovered as what his dear friend Bishop Nicolas Steno discovered.”

Gray remembered that name from Sister Clara’s account of the building of the Sanctuary of Mentorella — how Bishop Steno was the only colleague whom Kircher would allow to visit the construction of the chapel that hid Eve’s bones. The younger man was also a budding paleontologist, with an avid interest in fossils and old bones.

Roland picked up Kircher’s book from the table. “According to this journal, Kircher sent the young Nicolas out into the world to follow up on leads. The reverend father needed a younger man’s eyes and strength to extend the investigation abroad. To Crete, to Egypt, to Africa, and eventually as far as the New World.”

“What was he sent to look for?” Lena asked.

“For the truth behind those bones.” Roland lifted the journal higher. “Though I’ve not had a chance to fully review everything packed in here, I did read through correspondence, copied by Kircher into these pages, all written by Nicolas Steno, including several maps of his travels. One of those maps caught my eye, one that may tell us where to go from here.”

Gray stepped closer. “What did you find?”

“To understand that, you have to see this first.” Roland used his iPad to pull up a new image. “Here is another map, one that Father Kircher drew in Mundus Subterraneus. This one clearly depicts the continent of South America in more detail.”

Gray studied it, confused. “Didn’t Kircher publish this book well before he ever found Eve’s bones?”

“He did,” Roland admitted. “He actually constructed this map in attempt to describe the unique hydrology of that continent, to show how the rivers flowed out of the Andes and down to the sea. But note the large crater-like feature drawn in the center of the Andes.”

“What about it?” Gray asked.

“Father Kircher hypothesized that the Andes hid a great reservoir, a massive underground sea that supplied this continent with its water.”

“Okay,” Lena said tentatively. “But what does that have to—”

“Then look at this.” Roland cut her off and opened Kircher’s journal. “I found this illustration among the correspondence from Nicolas. It’s a copy of a section of the same map, but overdrawn with something that I think bears on all of this.”

Roland placed the journal on the table so all could see.

It did indeed appear to be a closer view of that same subterranean lake; only this time a new illustration lay atop the water, almost shimmering there.

Lena gasped softly. “That overlaid image — it’s the same one from the journal’s cover.”

Roland nodded. “The famous Minotaur’s labyrinth from Crete.”

Gray recalled Roland’s history of this maze, how that same pattern had been found carved into rocks discovered not only in Crete, but also in Italy, Spain, Ireland, and as far north as Finland. The pattern was even described in an Indian Sanskrit epic.

Roland faced them all. “I believe Nicolas Steno — following the clues found in Croatia and driven by the insights of Father Kircher — discovered the ancient home of these lost Watchers, marking it here with this labyrinth.”

Gray stared at the vast lake depicted on the drawing. “You mentioned before that the sinking of Atlantis might actually be the story of a drowned city.” He pointed to the open journal. “Are you saying that might be the place?”

“Possibly. At least Kircher believed so, but of course he might have conflated the reports from Nicolas Steno with Plato’s ancient tale. But either way, Nicolas discovered something in those South American mountains, something that ties all of this together.”

“If only we knew where that place was,” Lena said, her voice tinged with awe. “Can you imagine if we could go there?”

Roland glanced to her. “We can.”

“How?” Gray asked.

He tapped the illustration of the crater with a fingertip. “Because I know exactly where that is.”

Gray studied the map and understood. “The lines that crisscross over that site. They’re numbered.”

“Marking longitude and latitude. During Father Kircher’s time, latitude lines were calculated similarly to how we do today, but longitude used the Ferro Meridian instead of the Prime Meridian.”

“And you were able to convert them?” Gray asked, noting the twinkle of excitement shining brighter in the priest’s eyes.

“Not only that, I plotted the location.” Roland returned to his iPad and pulled up a map with an arrow pointing to the coordinates.

“It’s in Ecuador,” Gray said.

Roland nodded. “Deep in the Andes Mountains. About fifty miles due south of Cuenca.”

Lena shared Gray’s skepticism. “But how can we really know if any of this is significant? I mean, that looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere.”

Roland’s eyes shone brightly. “Because we’re not the first ones to follow Kircher’s bread crumbs to that area of the country.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked, unable to hide his surprise.

“From my own doctoral work, I know that there was another Catholic cleric — a monk named Father Carlos Crespi — who became enamored with Athanasius Kircher back in the early 1900s. The man even emulated the reverend father by pursuing the sciences as devotedly as he did his religion. Father Crespi was an avid botanist, anthropologist, historian, and musician. He eventually started a mission in Cuenca, where he served for fifty years until his death.”

“Cuenca?” Lena said, staring down at the map of Ecuador. “It’s right near that spot.”

“Exactly. It always struck me as strange that such an accomplished and knowledgeable man as Father Crespi should choose such a remote village in the Andes to spend the rest of his life. That is, until now.”

“You think he went out there because of Kircher?”

“In the rare stacks of this library, there are still scores of the reverend father’s collected works, most dating back to when the Museum Kircherianum closed its doors here at the university. It included a vast collection of his correspondence: notes, letters, replies, even early drafts of his work, some of which were never published. Most of it was forgotten for centuries and never cataloged. Until the project was undertaken by one man.”

“Let me guess,” Gray said. “Father Carlos Crespi.”

“He helped organize a majority of it, along with restoring and preserving most of those old letters. Including many from Nicolas Steno.”

“So you’re thinking that Crespi gleaned something from those letters that led him to Ecuador.”

“I can’t imagine he grasped the true breadth of all of this. But he must have believed there was something important worth investigating.”

“So he set up that mission in Cuenca?” Lena asked. “As a cover?”

Roland winced slightly. “No. I believe he saw an opportunity to pursue this line of interest while also following a true calling to help the natives of that region. In the end, he was deeply loved by those he served.”

“And what of his quest concerning Kircher?” Gray asked. “Did it ever lead anywhere?”

Roland smiled enigmatically. “It led to a mystery that has baffled archaeologists for decades, one that would eventually end with a British expedition into the Ecuadorian Andes, involving over a hundred soldiers and scientists, all led by a famous American hero.”

An American hero?

“Who are you talking about?” Gray asked.

Roland hefted the sphere of rock from the tabletop, balancing the sculpture in his palm, showing its perfect rendering of the lunar landscape across half its surface.

“The expedition was led by Neil Armstrong,” he answered with a broad smile. “The first man to walk on the moon.”

Before Gray could respond to this news, a sharp, angry shout rose behind him.

“That bitch!”

Gray turned to see Seichan spinning from the window and waving them all away.

“Run!” she shouted, her eyes panicked.

Seichan vaulted over the corner of the desk.

A breath ago, she had spotted a clutch of nuns in dark habits exiting through the main entrance of the Vatican’s university building. She had barely given them a second glance until one broke away, stepping with a slight limp toward a parked motorcycle. The oddity was enough to draw her attention. At the curb, the nun suddenly turned, parted her robe, and pulled free a compact assault rifle.

As the woman spun and pointed the barrel toward the window, Seichan caught a glimpse of the face hidden under the habit’s wimple. It was the Chinese assassin. Apparently the woman had shed her disguise as a tour guide and had assumed the role of a nun, stealing a page out of Seichan’s earlier playbook.

As Seichan skidded over the desktop, the windowpane shattered behind her. A dark object shot high overhead and ricocheted off a rafter.

Grenade.

Ahead of her, Gray was already in motion. He grabbed Lena around the waist with one arm and snatched Kircher’s book from the table. He barreled into Roland and drove the priest toward the office door.

Seichan would not make it.

Once past the desk, she hit the floor, skidded low on her back, and slid under the library table. She spun and kicked the table’s edge, sending it toppling over on its side, a shield between her and the grenade as it struck the floor to the far side of the desk.

The explosion rocked the room, the concussion pounding her head and popping her ears. The force of the blast shoved her and the table toward the door, amid a rain of wooden splinters and a cloud of choking smoke.

Gray had made it out to the hall, sheltering beyond the threshold. He grabbed her ankle and dragged her free of the office.

She rolled into a low crouch, scanning both directions for any other threat. She spotted no one. This section of the university building was secured with a passcode-locked system — but after such a commotion, Seichan knew any safeguards could be easily circumvented during the chaos to come.

Which was likely the intent.

Someone wanted them smoked out into the open.

Gray came to the same conclusion. “We need a way out of here!” he shouted above the ringing in her ears. “But not any of the usual exits.”

“The basement!” Roland pointed down the hall. “There’s a service tunnel, part of an old Roman aqueduct. It leads to an exit several streets over.”

“Show us,” Gray said, setting them in motion.

Seichan followed, but something nagged at her. She glanced back at the dark cloud rolling out the office door. She remembered the flying debris of the blasted desk, but the explosion had been mostly smoke and noise.

No shrapnel.

Gray noted her starting to lag. “What’s wrong?”

She turned back around, unsure, and waved him forward, certain of only one thing. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

First Lieutenant Shu Wei sat on the idling motorcycle at the rendezvous point near Piazza Navona. With the sun sitting low on the horizon, shadows filled the square ahead. Tourists and locals idled and chattered, drifting toward open-air restaurants for dinner.

No one paid her any attention.

Over the past hour, she had shed her disguise and disposed of her rifle, all the while maintaining contact with the three men assigned to her in Rome. She now listened to the phone at her ear as a secure connection was made to Beijing.

A stern voice answered. “Report.”

She recognized the brusque tone of Major General Lau and stiffened her back as if her aunt stood before her. “The targets are on the run. Unfortunately the men posted at the exits report no sign of them leaving the building.”

“That is indeed unfortunate.”

Shu bristled at the anger she heard in the other’s voice. After events up in the mountains, she had barely had any time to set up a proper ambush. Still, it was only through her resourcefulness and quick thinking that they had gained even this advantage.

Before escaping the mountain and stealing the motorbike, she had planted a tracker in the wheel well of the lone car still in the lot. It had allowed her to shadow her targets and close in on them once they reached the congestion of Rome. She had caught up in time to see the foursome entering the university building.

Afterward, it had been easy to incapacitate a nun in an empty hall, hide her body in a closet, and don the stolen habit. It took little effort from there to inquire about the arrival of such a battered and unusual group, to discern where they had gone. Then she had caught sight of the Croatian priest heading down to the library. Taking advantage of the opportunity to eliminate one target immediately, she had followed him, but before she could slip a dagger between his ribs, the priest had entered a section of the library where she couldn’t follow.

Still, she had gleaned enough from his inquiries at the front desk to tell he was investigating something quite diligently. She remembered that the nun who had attacked her back in the courtyard of the Sanctuary of Mentorella had told her this group had been inquiring about a seventeenth-century priest.

Apparently that investigation was ongoing.

While Shu had waited for the priest to return from the stacks, she had called Major General Lau and reported on what was happening. As ever, her aunt was not one to dismiss the variables in any equation. Lau had ordered her to discover what the others were searching for here, clearly fearful of being blindsided by whatever information this group sought to uncover.

So Shu bided her time in the main library. After nearly an hour, the Croatian priest finally reappeared and headed up to the secure section of the university that housed the professors’ private offices. Shu had wanted to eavesdrop on the group, but entry to that area required an access code. And without a laser microphone, she had no way of listening at the window from the streets below.

Major General Lau had suggested Shu flush the targets out into the open, to set them running, to follow them wherever that path might lead. The smoke grenade had accomplished the first half, but her targets proved to be resourceful, vanishing unseen into the shadows before she could reach the office.

“If you’ve lost them,” Lau warned over the phone now, “there will be repercussions, even for a niece I hold so dear.”

“It is no matter,” Shu said.

“Why is that?”

Shu looked down at her other hand, at the object she had recovered from the office during the bedlam that followed the explosion of her smoke bomb. She flicked the switch, and the iPad glowed to life. The device belonged to the priest, left behind in the group’s haste to escape.

Shu stared down at the last image viewed by the others, still frozen on the screen, and smiled as she answered her aunt.

“Because I know where they’re headed.”