The Judas Strain

7 Of a Journey Untold

In less than a day Gray had escaped halfway around the globe — and landed in another world. From the minarets of Istanbul’s countless mosques, muezzin called the Islamic faithful to morning prayer. Sunrise cast long shadows and ignited the city’s domes and spires.

Gray had a bird’s-eye view from the rooftop restaurant where he waited with Seichan and Kowalski. No one looked happy. They were jet-lagged and on edge. But the dull ache behind Gray’s eyes had more to do with his own concerns. Pursued by assassins, hunted by his own government, he had begun to doubt the wisdom of this current partnership.

And now this strange summons to Istanbul. Why? It made no sense. But at least for once, Seichan seemed equally baffled. She dripped honey into a tiny gold-rimmed cup of Turkish tea. The tea waiter, dressed in a traditional blue-and-gold embroidered vest, offered a refill to Gray.

He shook his head, already buzzing from the caffeine.

The waiter did not bother with Kowalski. The large man — dressed in a pair of jeans, black T-shirt, and long gray duster — had skipped the tea and gone straight for dessert. He nursed a chilled glass of grape brandy, called raki. “Tastes like licorice and asphalt,” he had commented with a curl of his lip, but it did not keep him from consuming two glasses. He had also discovered the buffet table, buttering up a pile of bread, stacking on olives, cucumbers, cheese, and a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs.

Gray had no appetite. He was too full of worries, too full of questions.

He stood up and crossed to the half wall that encircled the rooftop terrace, careful to stay in the shadow of a table’s umbrella. Istanbul, a terrorist hot spot, was under constant satellite surveillance. Gray wondered if his features were already being run through a facial-recognition program in some intelligence agency.

Was Sigma or the Guild closing in even now?

Seichan joined him, resting her teacup on the tiled ledge. She had slept the entire flight here, reclined in first class. With the rest, her color had much improved, though she still walked with a limp, favoring her wounded side. Aboard the jet, she had changed into a looser outfit, donning khaki pants and a billowing midnight-blue blouse, but she’d kept her black Versace motorcycle boots.

“Why do you think Monsignor Verona called us all the way here?” she asked. “To Istanbul.”

Turning, Gray leaned a hip on the wall. “What? So we’re talking now?”

Her eyes rolled ever so slightly, exasperated. Since they had left the doctor’s office back in Georgetown, Seichan had refused any further explanations. Not that they’d had much time. On the run, Seichan had stopped only long enough to make one call. To the Vatican. Gray had listened in on the conversation. It seemed Vigor had been expecting her call and was not at all surprised to find Gray with her.

“Word has spread,” the monsignor had explained. “Interpol, Europol, everyone is searching for you. I assume it was you, Seichan, who left me that little message in the Tower of Winds.”

“You found the inscription.”

“I did.”

“You recognized the writing.”

“Of course.”

Seichan had sounded relieved. “Then we don’t have much time. Many lives are in jeopardy. If you could gather your resources, figure out what—”

“I know what the inscription means, Seichan,” Vigor had scolded, cutting her off. “And I know what it implies. If you want to know more, you’ll both meet me at Hotel Ararat in Istanbul. I’ll be there seven in the morning. At the rooftop restaurant.”

After the call, Seichan had hurriedly arranged false papers and coordinated their transportation. She had assured him the Guild knew nothing of her contacts. “Just favors owed,” she had explained.

Seichan twisted with a wince to face him, drawing him back to the present. Her elbow bumped her cup of tea. Gray caught it before it went tumbling to the street below. She stared at the jostled cup with the slightest pinch of concern at the corner of her eyes. Gray suspected such carelessness was rare for this woman, someone always in control.

Just as quickly, her expression hardened again.

“I know I’ve kept you in the dark,” she said. “Once Monsignor Verona arrives, I will explain everything.” She nodded toward him. “But what about you? Did you make any headway with the obelisk’s writing?”

He merely shrugged, letting her think he knew something.

She stared — then sighed. “Fine.”

She returned to their table.

Seichan had supplied Gray with photographs and a printed copy of the angelic script. En route here, he had attempted to break whatever code was locked within the script, but there were too many variables. He needed more information. And besides, Gray suspected he already knew the message of the code: break open the obelisk and find the treasure inside.

They’d already done that.

Gray wore the silver crucifix on a cord around his neck. He had already examined it. It was definitely old, well worn. Even under a magnifying lens, he could discern no writing, no clues of any significance that would confirm Seichan’s wild claim that the cross once belonged to the confessor of Marco Polo, the world traveler and explorer.

Alone at the railing, Gray studied the city, already bustling in the early morning. Below, buses competed with cars and pedestrians. The bleat of horns attempted to drown out the sharper cries of hawkers and the continual babble of early-morning tourists.

He searched the immediate vicinity, watching for any sign of threat or suspicious approach. Had they shaken Nasser? Having put half the world between them, Seichan seemed confident. But Gray refused to let his guard down. Below, in the hotel’s courtyard, a pair of men rose from beaded blankets, finished with their morning prayers, and vanished back into the hotel. Alone now, a child splashed absently in the lobby fountain.

Satisfied, Gray allowed his gaze to shift momentarily higher. Hotel Ararat stood in the heart of Istanbul’s oldest district, the Sultanahmet. All the way to the sea, ancient structures rose like islands from the muddle of the lower streets. Right across from the hotel, the lofty domes of the Blue Mosque climbed into the sky. Farther down the street, a massive Byzantine church stood half swallowed by black scaffolding, as if the ironwork sought to clutch the structure to the earth’s bosom. And beyond the scaffolding, the Topkapi Palace sprawled amid courtyards and gardens.

Gray felt the weight of ages in these grand architectural masterpieces, stone monuments of history. His fingers absently fingered the cross around his neck. Here was another piece of antiquity, its provenance ripe with historical significance. But what did it have to do with Seichan’s global threat? A cross that once belonged to Marco Polo’s priest?

“Hey, Ali Baba,” Kowalski called out behind him. “One more of these licorice drinks.”

Gray bit back a groan.

“It is called raki,” a new voice corrected, full of professorial authority.

Gray turned. A familiar and welcome figure stepped from the shadowed stairway onto the rooftop terrace. Monsignor Vigor Verona spoke in Turkish to the tea waiter, polite, apologetic. “Bir sise raki lütfen.”

The waiter nodded with a smile and stepped away.

Vigor approached their table. Gray noted the lack of Roman collar around the man’s neck. Plainly the monsignor was traveling incognito. Free of the collar, Vigor appeared a decade younger than his sixty years. Or maybe it was the casual manner of his dress: blue denim jeans, hiking boots, and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He also carried a weathered backpack over one shoulder. He looked ready to scale the mountain for which Hotel Ararat was named, off on a search for Noah’s Ark.

And perhaps once upon a time, the monsignor had made that very trek.

Before rising to prefect of the Vatican’s archives, Vigor had served the Holy See as a biblical archaeologist. Such a position had also allowed him to serve the Vatican in one other manner. As spy. Vigor’s cover as an archaeologist had permitted him to travel broadly and deeply, perfect for filtering intelligence and information back to the Holy See.

Vigor had also helped Sigma in the past.

And it seemed his expertise was needed once again.

Vigor settled to the seat with a long sigh. The tea waiter returned and settled a steaming cup of tea in front of their new arrival.

“Teşekkürler,” Vigor said, thanking the man.

Kowalski shifted straighter as the waiter departed, staring between his empty glass and the back of the man’s embroidered vest. He slumped, swearing softly under his breath about the poor service.

“Commander Pierce. Seichan,” Vigor began. “Thank you for honoring my request. And Seaman Joe Kowalski. Wonderful to make your acquaintance.”

A few other pleasantries were passed around. Vigor haltingly mentioned his niece Rachel. It was an awkward subject. Rachel and Gray’s breakup had been a mutual understanding, but Vigor was still very protective of his niece. Not that she needed it. It seemed Rachel was faring well as a lieutenant with the Italian carabinieri, even gaining a pay grade.

Still, Gray was happy when Seichan interrupted. “Monsignor Verona, why did you summon us all the way to Istanbul?”

Vigor silenced her with a raised palm, sipped from his tea, then lowered his cup precisely to the tabletop. “Yes, we’ll get to that. But before that, I want two things settled at the start. First, wherever this leads, I’m coming with you.” He pinned Gray with a firm, unwavering stare — then swung his sights on Seichan. “Second, but no less important, I want to know what all this has to do with our illustrious Venetian explorer Marco Polo.”

Seichan started. “How did you…I never mentioned anything about Marco Polo?”

Before Vigor could respond, the waiter returned. Kowalski glanced up, hope in his eyes. Those same eyes widened further when the waiter produced a full bottle of raki and propped it in front of the former seaman.

“I ordered you a half liter,” Vigor explained.

Kowalski reached over and squeezed Vigor’s arm. “Padre, you’re all right in my book.”

Gray turned his attention to Seichan. “So what does all this have to do with Marco Polo?”

The black BMW sedan turned off Dupont Circle and glided through the darker streets. Its xenon headlights carved a bluish path down the elm-lined avenue. Rows of apartment buildings framed the street, creating an urban canyon.

It was nothing like the canyons of Nasser’s own land, where only goats roamed and caves and tunnels served as homesteads for the wandering Afghani tribes. Yet even that land was not truly his home. His father had left Cairo when Nasser was eight years old, off to Afghanistan after its liberation from Russian forces, to join those who sought a purer Islam. Nasser’s younger brother and sister had been dragged there, too. They’d had no choice. On the eve of their departure, his father had strangled his mother, using Nasser’s own school scarf. His mother had not wanted to leave Egypt, to vanish forever beneath a burka. She had talked, complained in the wrong ears.

The children had been forced to watch, kneeling in obeisance, as their mother’s eyes bulged, tongue swollen, punished by their father’s hand.

It was a lesson Nasser learned well.

To be cold. In all ways.

The xenon lamps swept around a corner. From the passenger seat, Nasser motioned to the middle of the block. “Stop there.”

The driver, his broken nose bandaged after the failed kidnapping, slid the sedan to the curb. Nasser twisted around to face the rear seat. Two figures huddled close together.

Annishen, dressed all in shades of black, almost faded into the leather furniture. She even wore a hood over her shaved scalp, giving her a monkish appearance. Her eyes shone brightly out of the darkness. She had one arm around her companion, leaning close, intimate.

He still mewled around the gag. Blood blackened one side of his face and throat. In his bound hands, clutched between his knees, he still held his own right ear. Nasser had discovered the man’s name in a Rolodex.

A doctor.

“Is this the place?” Nasser asked.

The man nodded vigorously, squeezing his eyes shut after verifying the address.

Nasser studied the building’s lobby. A night watchman was stationed behind a desk inside. A security camera protruded above the bulletproof glass doors. Full security. Nasser rubbed his thumb along the edge of the electronic key in his hand, a gift courtesy of their passenger.

After a full day, Nasser was finally back on the trail of the American and the Guild traitor. Last night, he had searched the small home in the Takoma Park neighborhood. He had discovered Seichan’s damaged motorcycle in its garage, but little else. There had been no sign of the obelisk, except for a broken fragment of Egyptian marble in the driveway.

But inside the house, Allah had smiled upon him.

Nasser had discovered a Rolodex.

With several doctors’ names.

It had taken the rest of the day to find the right one.

He turned around again.

“Thank you, Dr. Corrin. You’ve provided the leverage I’ll need.”

Nasser had no need to nod to Annishen. Her blade slipped between the man’s ribs and opened his heart. It was a Mossad technique that Nasser had taught Annishen. He had employed it himself only once before.

As his father knelt in prayer.

Not a child’s vengeance. Only justice.

Nasser shoved open the door to the sedan. He owed his father — if only for the lesson taught to an eight-year-old boy, kneeling before his strangled mother.

Such a lesson would serve him again this night.

To be cold. In all ways.

Exiting the car, Nasser crossed and opened the rear door. Annishen unfolded out of the backseat, rising with a rustle of black leather, resplendent in an Italian-designed calfskin jacket and a dark suede outfit, a match to his Armani suit. There was not a drop of blood on her, proving again the artistry of her craft. He slipped his arm around her and closed the door.

She leaned against him. “The night is just beginning,” she whispered with a contented sigh.

He pulled her closer. Just two lovers returning from a late dinner.

The summer night was still muggy, but the apartment lobby was air-conditioned. The doors sighed open to greet them with a swipe of Dr. Corrin’s key card. The guard glanced up from his desk.

Nasser nodded to him, striding toward the neighboring elevator bank. Annishen offered a tinkling giggle, purring up against Nasser’s side, plainly anxious to get to their apartment. Her hand sidled to the holstered Glock at his waist.

Just in case…

But the guard merely nodded back, mumbled a “good evening,” and returned his attention to the magazine he was reading.

Nasser shook his head as he reached the elevator bank. Typical. What passed for security here in America was more show than substance.

He called the elevator with a press of a button.

Shortly thereafter, Nasser and Annishen stood before apartment 512. He swiped the same key card across the door lock. The indicator light changed from red to green.

He glanced to Annishen. He read the dance in her eyes, stirred from the earlier bloodshed.

“We need at least one of them alive,” he warned.

She feigned a pout and drew her weapon.

Using one finger, Nasser pushed the door handle down. He edged the way open on well-oiled hinges. Not even a creak. He entered first, slipping into the marble foyer. A light flowed from a bedroom in back.

Nasser paused just inside the door.

One eye narrowed.

There was something too still about the air. Too quiet. He needed to go no farther. He held his breath. He knew the apartment was empty.

Still, he waved Annishen to one side. He took the other. In moments, they swept the apartment’s rooms, checking even closets.

No one was here.

Annishen stood in the master bedroom. The bed was made and looked untouched. “The doctor lied to us,” she said with clear irritation and a moderate note of respect. “They’re not here.”

Nasser was in the master bathroom. Down on one knee. He had spotted something on the floor, rolled under the edge of the bathroom’s cherry vanity.

He picked it up.

A red prescription bottle. Empty.

He read the label. The patient. Jackson Pierce.

“They were here,” he muttered hard, and straightened up.

Dr. Corrin had not lied. He had told them the truth — or at least, what he thought was the truth.

“They’ve moved on,” Nasser said, and strode back to the bedroom.

He clenched the empty pill bottle in his fist, swallowing his fury. Commander Pierce had tricked him yet again. First with the obelisk, now with this shuffle of his parents.

“What now?” Annishen asked.

He lifted the pill bottle.

One last chance.

“To begin, Seichan said, “what do you know about Marco Polo?”

She had donned a set of blue-tinted sunglasses. The sun had risen enough that the rooftop restaurant was a mix of shadows and glaring brightness. They had moved to a secluded corner table, sheltered under an umbrella.

Gray heard the clear hesitation in her voice — and maybe a trace of relief. Her will teetered between a wary desire to control the flow of knowledge and a compulsion to release the burden of its weight.

“Polo was a thirteenth-century explorer,” Gray answered. He had read up a bit on the man on the journey here. “Along with his father and uncle, Marco spent two decades in China as honored guests of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. And after returning to Italy in 1295, Marco narrated his travels to a French writer named Rustichello, who wrote it all down.”

Marco’s book, The Description of the World, became an instant hit in Europe, sweeping the continent with its fantastic tales: of vast and lonely deserts in Persia, of China’s teeming cities, of far-off lands populated by naked idolaters and sorcerers, of islands fraught with cannibals and strange beasts. The book ignited the imagination of Europe. Even Christopher Columbus carried a copy on his voyage to the New World.

“But what does any of this have to do with what’s going on today?” Gray finished.

“Everything,” Seichan answered, glancing around the table.

Vigor sipped his tea. Kowalski leaned his ear on a fist propped up by an elbow. While the man looked bored, Gray noted how his eyes clocked around, studying them all, tracking the interplay. Gray suspected there were depths to the man as yet unplumbed. Kowalski absently fed crumbs of tea cakes to scrabbling sparrows.

Seichan continued, “Marco Polo’s tales were not as clear-cut as most people believe. No original text exists of Marco Polo’s book, only copies of copies. And in any such translations and reeditions, marked differences have cropped up.”

“Yes, I read about that,” Gray said, trying to hurry her along. “So many disparities that some now wonder if Marco Polo ever really existed. Or if he was merely a fabrication of the French writer.”

“He existed,” Seichan insisted.

Vigor nodded his head in agreement. “I’ve heard the case against Marco Polo. Of the significant gaps in his descriptions of China.” The monsignor lifted his cup. “Like the Far East’s passion for drinking tea. A concoction unknown to Europeans at the time. Or the practice of foot binding or the use of chopsticks. Marco fails to even mention the Great Wall. Plainly these are glaring and suspicious omissions. Yet Marco also got many things right: the peculiar manufacture of porcelain, the burning of coal, even the first use of paper money.”

Gray heard the certainty in the monsignor’s voice. Maybe it was just Vigor’s Italian pride, but Gray sensed a deeper confidence.

“Either way,” Gray finally conceded, “what does this have to do with us?”

“Because there was another serious omission in all the editions of Polo’s book,” Seichan said. “It concerns Marco’s return trip to Italy. Kublai Khan conscripted the Polos to escort a Mongol princess named Kokejin to her betrothed in Persia. For such a grand undertaking, the Khan supplied the group with fourteen giant galleys and over six hundred men. Yet when they reached port in Persia, only two ships had survived the journey and only eighteen men.”

“What happened to the rest?” Kowalski mumbled.

“Marco Polo never told. The French writer Rustichello hints at something in the preface to the famous book, a tragedy among the islands of Southeast Asia. But it was never written. Even on his deathbed, Marco Polo refused to tell of what happened.”

“And this is true?” Gray asked.

“It is a mystery that was never solved,” Vigor answered. “Most historians guessed disease or piracy beset the fleet. All that is known for certain is that Marco’s ships drifted among the Indonesian islands for five months, only escaping with a fraction of the Khan’s fleet intact.”

“So,” Seichan asked, pressing the significance, “why would such a dramatic part of his journey be left out of Marco’s book? Why did he take it to his grave?”

Gray had no answer. But the mystery stirred a nagging worry. He sat a bit straighter. In his head, he began to get an inkling of where this might be leading.

Vigor’s countenance had also grown more shadowed. “You know what happened among those islands, don’t you?”

She dipped her head in acknowledgment. “The first edition of Marco Polo’s book was written in French. But there was a movement during Marco’s lifetime: to reproduce books in the Italian dialect. It was driven by a famous contemporary of Marco Polo.”

“Dante Alighieri,” Vigor said.

Gray glanced to the monsignor.

Vigor explained, “Dante’s Divine Comedy, including the famous Inferno, were the first books written in Italian. Even the French came to nickname the Italian language la langue de Dante.”

Seichan nodded. “And such a revolution did not pass by Marco. According to historical records, he translated a French copy of his book into his native language. For his countrymen to appreciate. But in the process, he made one secret copy for himself. In that one book, he finally related what befell the Khan’s fleet. Wrote that last story.”

“Impossible,” Vigor mumbled. “How would such a book have remained hidden for so long? Where has it been?”

“At first, at the Polos’ family estate. Then eventually in a place more secure.” Seichan stared at Vigor.

“You can’t mean—”

“The Polos were sent abroad by order of Pope Gregory. There are some who claim that Marco’s father and uncle were the first Vatican spies, sent as double agents into China to scout the strength of the Mongol forces. The veritable founders of the agency you once served, Monsignor Verona.”

Vigor sank back into his seat, retreating into his own thoughts. “The secret diary was hidden in the archives,” he mumbled.

“Buried away, unregistered. Just another edition of Marco’s book to all outside eyes. It would take a thorough reading to realize that there was an extra chapter woven near the end of the book.”

“And the Guild got ahold of this edition?” Gray asked. “Learned something important.”

Seichan nodded.

Gray frowned. “But how did the Guild get their hands on this secret text in the first place?”

Taking off her sunglasses, Seichan stared him full in the face, accusing, angry.

“You gave it to them, Gray.”

Vigor read the shock in the commander’s face.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Gray asked.

Vigor also noted the steel flash of satisfaction in the emerald eyes of the Guild assassin. She seemed to gain a measure of enjoyment in taunting them. Still, he also noted the thinness of her face, the bit of pallor to her cheeks. She was scared.

“We’re all to blame,” Seichan said, nodding also to Vigor.

Vigor kept his reaction placid, not playing this game. He was too old for his blood to be so easily stirred. Besides, he already understood.

“The Dragon Court’s symbol,” Vigor said. “You painted it on the floor. I thought it was meant as a warning to me, a call to investigate the angelic inscription.”

Seichan nodded, leaning back. She read the understanding in his eyes.

“But it was more,” he continued. He remembered the man who formerly filled his seat at the Vatican Archives: Dr. Alberto Menardi, a traitor who secretly worked for the Royal Dragon Court. The man had pilfered many key texts from the archives during his tenure, stole them away to a private library in a castle in Switzerland. Gray, Seichan, and Vigor had been instrumental in exposing the man, destroying the sect of the Dragon Court. The castle ended up being bequeathed to the Verona household, a cursed estate with a long bloody history.

“Alberto’s library,” Vigor said. “At the castle. After all the bloodshed and horror, once the police allowed us on-site, we discovered the entire library gone. Vanished away.”

“Why wasn’t I told about this?” Gray asked, surprised.

Vigor sighed. “We supposed it was local thieves…or possibly some corruption among the Italian police. There had been many priceless antiquities in the traitor’s library. And because of Alberto’s interest, there were many books of arcane knowledge.”

As much as Vigor despised the former prefect, he also recognized Alberto Menardi’s brilliance, a genius in his own right. And as prefect of the archives for over thirty years, Alberto knew all its secrets. He would have treasured and been intrigued by such a discovery, an edition of Marco’s The Description of the World with a hidden extra chapter.

But what had the old prefect read? What made him steal it away? What had piqued the interest and attention of the Guild?

Vigor stared at Seichan. “But it wasn’t ordinary thieves who cleared out the library, was it? You told the Guild about the treasures to be found there.”

Seichan did not even have the temerity to flinch at his accusation. “I had no choice. Two years ago, the library bought me my life after I helped the two of you. I had no idea what horror it hid.”

Gray had remained silent during their exchange, watching, eyes narrowed. Vigor could almost see the gears turning, tumblers falling into new slots. Like Alberto, Gray had a unique mind, a way of juggling disparate fragments and discovering a new configuration. It was no wonder Seichan had sought him out.

Gray nodded to her. “You read this text, Seichan. The true account of the return voyage of Marco Polo.”

As answer, she shoved her chair back, leaned down, and unzippered her left boot. She removed a sheaf of three papers, folded and tucked into a hidden inner pocket. Straightening, she smoothed the papers open and slid them across the table.

“Once I began to suspect what the Guild intended,” she said, “I made a copy of the translated chapter for myself.”

Vigor and Gray shifted closer, shoulder to shoulder, to peruse the sheets together. The large seaman leaned over, too, his breath spiced with anise from the raki.

Vigor scanned the title and the first few lines.

Vigor continued reading, recognizing the cadence and stiffly archaic prose from The Description of the World. Could these words truly be Marco Polo’s? If so, here was a chapter only a few eyes had ever laid eyes upon. Vigor craved to read the original, not fully trusting the translation — but more importantly, he wanted to peruse the original dialect, to be that much closer to the famous medieval traveler.

He read on:

After the first page Vigor sensed a palpable menace growing behind Marco’s simple narrative. In plain words, he related how “the forest grew quiet of bird and beast.” Marco and the hunters continued, following a trail far into the jungle, “trampled by these mountain builders.”

At long last, as twilight neared, Marco’s party came upon a stone city.

A chill washed over Vigor, despite the growing heat of the morning. He read with numbing horror as Marco described how his party fled deeper into the city to seek refuge from the ravening army. The Venetian described in great detail the slaughter and cannibalism. As twilight fell, Marco’s party retreated to one of the tall buildings, carved with twisting snakes and long-dead kings. The group set up a final stand, sure their small party would be overwhelmed as more and more of the diseased cannibals entered the city.

Gray mumbled under his breath, no words audible, but his disbelief was plain.

The story stopped there.

Gray flipped the paper over, looking for more.

Kowalski leaned back and made his only contribution to the historical discussion. “Not enough sex,” he mumbled, and attempted to hold back a burp with a fist and failed.

Frowning, Gray tapped a name on the last page. “Here…this mention of Friar Agreer.”

Vigor nodded, having spotted the same glaring error. Surely this text was false. “No clergymen accompanied the Polos to the Orient,” he stated aloud. “According to Vatican texts, two Dominican friars left with the Polos, to represent the Holy See, but the pair turned back after the first few days.”

Seichan collected the first page and refolded it. “Like this secret chapter, Marco edited the friar out of his chronicles. Three Dominicans actually left with the Polos. One for each traveler, as was custom for the time.”

Vigor realized she was right. It was indeed the custom.

“Only two of the friars fled back,” Seichan said. “The presence of the third was kept hidden…until now.”

Gray shifted back and tugged at his neck. He pulled free a silver crucifix and placed it on the table. “And you claim this is actually Friar Agreer’s cross? The one mentioned in the story.”

Seichan’s firm stare answered his question.

Shocked into silence at the sudden revelation, Vigor studied the crucifix. It was unadorned, with the barest representation of a crucified figure. Vigor could tell it was old. Could it be true? He gently collected it from the table and examined it. If true, its very weight gave substance to Marco’s harrowing words.

Vigor finally found his voice. “But I don’t understand. Why was Friar Agreer cut out of the story?”

Seichan reached over and collected the scattered papers. “We don’t know,” she said simply. “The remaining pages of the book were ripped out and replaced with a false page, stitched into the binding, but the quality and age of the new page dated it centuries later than the original binding.”

Vigor frowned at such strangeness. “What was on the new page?”

“I was never able to see it myself, but I was told what it said. It contained a rambling rave, full of references to angels and biblical quotations. The writer clearly feared Marco’s story. But more importantly, the page spoke at length of a map included in the book, one drawn by Marco himself. A map they deemed to be evil.”

“So what happened to it?”

“Though they feared it, whoever edited the book also worried about destroying the map completely. So the writer, along with a handful of others, rewrote the map in a code that would protect and bless it.”

Gray nodded his understanding. “So they buried it in angelic script.”

“But who inserted the page?” Vigor asked.

Seichan shrugged. “It was unsigned, but there were enough references on the page to suggest that the Polos’ descendants had handed Marco’s secret book over to the papacy following the ravage of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century. Maybe the family feared the plague was the same pestilence that struck the City of the Dead, come at last to destroy the rest of the world. It was then the book was added to the archives.”

“Interesting,” Vigor said. “If you’re right, it might explain why all trace of the Polo family vanished about then. Even Marco Polo’s body vanished out of the Church of San Lorenzo, where he’d been buried. It was as if there was a systemic attempt to erase the Polo family. Did anyone ever date that rambling new page?”

Seichan nodded. “It was dated to the early sixteen-hundreds.”

Vigor squinted his eyes. “Hmm…another great outbreak of bubonic plague swept Italy at about that time.”

“Exactly,” Seichan said. “And it was also at that time that a German named Johannes Trithemius first developed the angelic script. Despite his claim that it was a script from before man walked the earth.”

Vigor nodded. He had performed his own historical study of angelic script. Its creator believed that by using his angelic alphabet — supposedly gained from deep meditative study — one could communicate with the heavenly choir of angels. Trithemius also dabbled in cryptography and secret codes. His famous treatise, Stenographia, was considered to be of occult nature, but it was actually a complex mix of angelology and code breaking.

“So if you wanted to hide a map during that time,” Gray concluded, “one you deemed evil, then locking it up inside angelic script might seem a good way to ward against its dangers.”

“That is exactly what the Guild came to believe. There were clues in that secret page as to the location of this coded map, a map now carved onto an Egyptian obelisk and hidden in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican. But the obelisk had vanished, lost in time, shifted around. Nasser and I played a cat-and-mouse game searching for it. But I won. I stole it from under Nasser’s nose.”

Vigor heard the bitter pride in her voice, but he frowned and searched the others’ faces. “What obelisk are you all talking about?”

In sketchy highlights, Gray explained about the Egyptian obelisk that was used to hide the friar’s cross and described the code painted in phosphorescent oils.

“Here is the actual text.” Gray handed over his copy.

Vigor studied the complex jumble of angelic code and shook his head. “It makes no sense to me.”

“Precisely,” Seichan said. “The rambling letter in Marco’s text also references a key to the map. A way to unlock its secret. A key hidden in three parts. The first key was tied to the inscription in the room where the secret text was originally hidden.”

“In the Tower of Winds,” Vigor said. “A good hiding place. The tower was under construction during that century. Built to house the Vatican Observatory.”

“And according to the false page in Marco’s book,” Seichan continued, “each key would lead to the next. So to begin, we need to solve that first riddle. The angelic inscription in the Vatican.” She turned fully to Vigor. “You claimed you’d succeeded. Is that true?”

Vigor opened his mouth to explain, but Gray placed a hand on his arm. He wasn’t about to give Seichan all of their cards. He needed to hold at least one ace in the hole.

“Before that,” Gray said, “you’ve still not said why the Guild is involved in all this. What gain is there in pursuing this historical trail from Marco Polo to the present?”

Seichan hesitated. She took a deep breath — whether to lie or steel herself for telling the truth, he wasn’t sure. When she spoke, she confirmed Gray’s own growing fears.

“Because we believe Marco’s disease is loose again,” she said. “Freed from some ancient timbers of Marco’s original galleys found among the Indonesian islands. The Guild is already on-site, ready to follow the scientific trail. Nasser and I were assigned to follow the historical trail. As was custom for the Guild, the right arm was not supposed to know what the left one was doing.”

Gray understood the cell-like compartmentalization of the Guild, a pattern taken to heart by many terrorist organizations.

“But I stole some information,” she said. “I learned the nature of the disease, and its ability to alter the biosphere forever.”

Seichan continued with the Guild’s discovery of a virus — something called the Judas Strain — and its capability of turning all bacteria into killers.

She quoted from Marco’s text. “‘A legion of pestilence.’ That is what struck Indonesia. But I know the Guild. I know what they plan to do. By harvesting and harnessing this pathogen, they hope to create a slew of new bacterial bioweapons, an inexhaustible source born of this virus.”

As Seichan related details about the disease, Gray had gripped the edge of the table. His knuckles ached. A greater terror had taken hold of him.

Before he could speak, Vigor cleared his throat. “But if the scientific arm of the Guild is pursuing this virus, what is so important about this historical hunt along Marco Polo’s trail? What does it matter?”

Gray answered, quoting the last line of Marco’s text. “‘A dark Virtue that saved us all.’ That sounds like a cure to me.”

Seichan nodded. “Marco survived to tell his story. Even the Guild wouldn’t dare unleash such a virus without some means of controlling it.”

“Or at least to discover its source,” Gray added.

Vigor stared out toward the city, his face limned against the rising sun. “And there are other unanswered questions. What became of Father Agreer? What scared the papacy?”

But Gray had a more important question of his own. “Exactly where in Indonesia did this new outbreak happen?”

“At a remote island, luckily far from any large population.”

“Christmas Island,” Gray filled in.

Seichan’s eyes widened in surprise.

Confirmation enough.

Gray shoved up. Everyone stared at him. Monk and Lisa had gone out to Christmas Island to investigate the same disease. They had no idea what they were about to confront — or of the Guild’s interest. Gray’s breathing grew heavier. He had to get word to Painter. But with Sigma compromised, would his alarm put his friends in more danger, paint a bull’s-eye on them?

He needed more information. “How far along is this Guild operation in Indonesia?”

“I don’t know. It was difficult learning what I did.”

“Seichan,” Gray growled at her.

Her eyes narrowed with concern. In his agitation, he almost believed it was genuine. “I…I truly don’t know, Gray. Why? What’s wrong?”

With a hard exhalation, Gray crossed to the railing, needing an extra second to think, to let everything he’d learned settle through him.

For the moment, he knew only one thing for certain.

He needed to get word to Washington.

Harriet Pierce struggled to calm her husband. It was especially difficult as he’d locked himself in the hotel bathroom. She pressed a cold damp rag to her split lip.

“Jack! Open the door!”

He had woken two hours ago, confused and disoriented. She had seen it before. Sundowner’s syndrome. Common with Alzheimer’s patients. A condition of heightened agitation after sunset, when the familiar surroundings become confusing in the dark.

And it was worse here. Away from home.

It didn’t help that the Phoenix Park Hotel was their second accommodation in less than twenty-four hours. First, Dr. Corrin’s apartment, and now here. But Gray had been firm when he whispered his good-byes and added a private instruction to her. Once Dr. Corrin left them at the apartment, she had been told to leave, cross the city, and check into another hotel, paying cash, using a false name.

An extra precaution.

But all the moving had only worsened Jack’s status. He had been off his Tegetrol mood stabilizer for a full day. And he had finished the last of his Propranolol, a blood pressure medication that reduced anxiety.

So it was no surprise that Jack had woken earlier in a panic, disoriented. The worst she had seen in months.

His shouts and heavy-footed blundering had woken her. She had inadvertently fallen asleep, seated in a chair in front of the hotel room’s small television. The channel had been tuned to Fox News. She had the volume on low, just loud enough to hear if Gray’s name was mentioned again.

Startled awake by her husband’s shout, she had hurried to the bedroom. A foolish mistake. One didn’t surprise a patient in his state. Jack had slapped her away, striking her in the mouth. With his blood up, it took him a full half minute to recognize her.

When he finally did, he had retreated to the bathroom. She’d heard his sobbing. It was the reason he had locked the door.

Pierce men didn’t cry.

“Jack, open the door. It’s okay. I’ve called a prescription into the pharmacy down the street. It’s all right.”

Harriet knew it was a risk, calling in the prescription. But she couldn’t take Jack to a hospital, and if untreated, his dementia would only grow worse. And his shouting threatened to draw the wrath of the hotel’s management. What if they called the police?

With no choice, her teeth aching from the blow, she had made a decision. Using the phone book, she had called a twenty-four-hour pharmacy that delivered and ordered a refill. Once the medication arrived and her husband was treated, she would check out, move to a new hotel, and disappear again.

The doorbell chimed behind her.

Oh, thank God.

“Jack, that’s the pharmacy. I’ll be right back.”

She rushed out of the bedroom and across to the front door. Reaching for the dead bolt, she paused. She leaned forward instead and peeked through the door’s peephole. It offered a fish-eye view of the hallway. A lone woman, black hair cut into a bob, stood outside the door. She wore a white jacket with the pharmacy logo on the lapel and carried a white paper bag, stapled with a clutch of receipt.

The woman reached out of view. The bell chimed again. The woman checked her watch and began to step away.

Harriet called through the door. “Hold for a moment!”

“Swan Pharmacy,” the woman called back.

To be extra cautious, Harriet crossed to the telephone on an entryway table. She caught a look at herself in the wall mirror above it. She looked haggard, a melted wax candle of a woman. She tapped the button on the phone and rang the front desk in the lobby.

It was answered immediately.

“Phoenix Park. Front desk.”

“This is room 334. I wanted to confirm a pharmacy delivery.”

“Yes, ma’am. I checked her credentials three minutes ago. Is there a problem?”

“No. Not at all. I just wanted—”

A crash sounded from the bedroom behind her, followed by a spat of cursing. Jack had finally opened the bathroom door.

The receptionist spoke in her ear. “Is there anything else I can do for you, ma’am.”

“No. Thank you.” She hung up the phone.

“Harriet!” her husband called, a note of distress behind the anger.

“I’m here, Jack.”

The doorbell chimed again.

Frazzled, Harriet undid the door’s dead bolt, hoping Jack would not fuss about taking his pills. She pulled open the door.

The delivery woman lifted her face, smiling — but there was no warmth, only a feral amusement. A shock of recognition froze Harriet. It was the woman who had attacked them at the safe house. Before Harriet could move, the woman kicked the door the rest of the way open.

Startled, the edge struck Harriet in the shoulder and knocked her into a stumbling fall onto the hard tile. She tried to absorb the impact with an outstretched arm — but her wrist exploded under her with a sharp snap. Fiery pain shot up her arm.

Gasping out, half on her hip, she rolled away.

Jack stalked out of the bedroom, only in his boxers.

“Harriet…?”

Still addled, Jack took too long to register the situation.

The woman stepped over the threshold and raised a thick-barreled pistol. She pointed the weapon at Jack. “Here’s your medication.”

“No,” Harriet moaned.

The woman pulled the trigger. A snapping pop of electricity exploded from the barrel. Something spat past Harriet’s ear, trailing wire. It struck Jack in the bare chest, sparking and crackling blue in the dim light.

Taser.

He gagged, arms flying out — and crashed backward.

He didn’t move.

In the stunned silence a Fox News announcer whispered from the half-muted television: “Metro police are still continuing a manhunt for Grayson Pierce, wanted in connection to the arson and bombing of a local D.C. home.”

Alone at the roof rail Gray struggled to think of some secure channel to communicate to Washington. About the dangers at Christmas Island. He would have to be circumspect, some private communication that would not spread beyond Painter. But how? Who was to say that the Guild was not monitoring all manner of communication?

Seichan spoke behind him, back at the table. Her words were not directed at Gray. “Monsignor, you still have not explained why you called us to Istanbul. You claimed to have understood the angelic inscription.”

Curiosity drew Gray back to the table, but he could not sit. He stood between Seichan and Vigor.

The monsignor swung up his backpack and settled it in his lap. He fished through it and pulled out a notebook, flipping it open on the table. Across the page was a charcoal-etched line of angelic letters.

“Here is the inscription on the floor of the Tower of Wind,” Vigor said. “Each letter of this alphabet corresponds to a specific tonal word. And according to the father of angelic script, Trithemius, when combined in the right sequence, such groupings could open a direct line to a specific angel.”

“Like long-distance dialing,” Kowalski muttered from the other side of the table.

With a nod, Vigor flipped the sheet to the next page. “I went ahead and marked the name for each letter.”

Gray shook his head, not seeing any pattern.

Vigor slipped out a pen and drew a line under the first letter of each name, reciting as he did so. “A. I. G. A. H.”

“Is that some angel’s name?” Kowalski asked.

“No, not an angel, but it is a name,” Vigor said. “What you have to understand is that Trithemius based his alphabet on Hebrew, claiming power in the Jewish letters. Even today, practitioners of Kabbalah believe that there is some form of divine wisdom buried in the shapes and curves of the Hebrew alphabet. Trithemius just claimed his angelic script was the purest distillation of Hebrew.”

Gray leaned closer, beginning to understand the direction of Vigor’s track. “And Hebrew is read opposite from English. From right to left.”

Seichan traced a finger across the paper and read backward. “H. A. G. I. A.”

“Hagia,” Vigor pronounced carefully. “The word means ‘divine’ in Greek.”

Gray’s eyes had narrowed — then widened with sudden understanding.

Of course.

“What?” Seichan asked.

Kowalski scratched the stubble on his head, equally clueless.

Vigor stood and drew them all up. He walked them to face the city. “On his journey home, Marco Polo crossed through Istanbul, named Constantinople at the time. Here is where he crossed from Asia and finally reentered Europe, a significant crossroads of sorts.”

The monsignor pointed out to the city, toward one of the ancient monuments. Gray had noted it before. A massive flat-domed church, half covered in black scaffolding as restoration work was under way.

“Hagia Sophia,” Gray said, naming the structure.

Vigor nodded. “It was once the largest Christian church in all the world. Marco himself commented on the wonders of its airy spaces. Some people mistake Hagia Sophia to mean ‘Saint Sophia,’ but in fact, the true name of the structure is the Church of Divine Wisdom, which can also be interpreted as the Church of Angelic Wisdom.”

“Then that’s where we must go!” Seichan said. “The first key must be hidden there.” She swung away.

“Not so fast, young lady,” Vigor scolded.

The monsignor returned to his backpack, reached inside, and drew out a cloth-wrapped object. Gently resting it on the table, he peeled back the layers to reveal a flat bar of dull gold. It appeared very old. It bore a hole at one end, and its surface was covered in a cursive script.

“Not angelic,” Vigor said, noting Gray’s attention to the lettering. “It’s Mongolian. It reads, ‘By the strength of the eternal heaven, holy be the Khan’s name. Let he who pays him not reverence be killed.’”

“I don’t understand,” Gray said, crinkling his brow. “Did this belong to Marco Polo? What is it?”

“In Chinese, it is called a paitzu. In Mongolian, a gerege.”

Three blank faces stared back at Vigor.

Vigor nodded to the object. “In the modern vernacular, it’s a VIP passport. A traveler bearing this superpassport could demand horses, supplies, men, boats, anything from the lands governed by Kublia Khan. To refuse such aid was punishable by death. The Khan granted such passes to those ambassadors who traveled in his service.”

“Nice,” Kowalski whistled — but from the glint in the man’s eyes, Gray suspected it was the gold more than the story that had won the man’s awe.

“And the Polos were given one of these passports?” Seichan asked.

“Three of them, in fact. One for each Polo. Marco, his father, and his uncle. In fact, there is an anecdote concerning these passports. A famous one. When the Polos arrived back in Venice, it was said no one recognized them. The trio came worn, tired, in a single ship. Looking little better than beggars. None would believe them to be the long-vanished Polos. Upon stepping to shore, the trio sliced open the seams of their clothes, and a vast wealth of emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and silver spilled out. Included in this treasure trove were the three golden paitzus, described in great detail. But after this story, the golden passports vanished away. All three of them.”

“The same number as the map’s keys,” Gray commented.

“Where did you find this?” Seichan asked. “In one of the Vatican museums?”

“No.” Vigor tapped the open notebook with the angelic script. “With the help of a friend, I discovered it under the marble tile upon which this inscription was written. In a secret hollow beneath the marble.”

Like the friar’s cross, Gray realized. Buried in stone.

Seichan swore slightly. Again the prize had been right under her nose all along.

Vigor continued, “I believe this is one of the very paitzus granted to the Polos.” He faced them all. “And I believe this is the first key.”

“So the clue leading to Hagia Sophia…” Gray began.

“It’s pointing to the second key,” Vigor finished. “Two more missing passports, two more missing keys.”

“But how can you be so sure?” Seichan asked.

Vigor flipped the gold bar over. Inscribed in great detail, a single letter adorned the back side. An angelic letter.

Vigor tapped the letter. “Here is the first key.”

Gray knew he was right. He glanced up, toward the massive church. Hagia Sophia. The second key had to be hidden there, but it was a huge structure. It would be like finding a golden needle in a haystack. It could take days.

Vigor must have read his worry. “I already have someone scouting ahead at the church. An art historian from the Vatican who helped me back at the Tower of Wind with the angelic riddle.”

Gray nodded. As he studied the single letter, he could not shake a deeper worry. For his two friends. Monk and Lisa. Already in harm’s way. If he could not contact Washington safely, perhaps there was another way he could help his friends: by beating the Guild to whatever lay at the end of this mystery.

To find the City of the Dead, to discover the cure.

Before the Guild did.

As he stared toward the sunrise, Gray remembered Vigor’s words about Istanbul being the crossroad of Marco’s journey. In fact, since its founding, the ancient city had been the crossroads of the geographic world. To the north lay the Black Sea, to the south the Mediterranean. The Bosporus Strait, a major trade route and seaway, flowed between them. But more important to history, Istanbul straddled two continents. It had one foot in Europe, the other in Asia.

The same could be said about the city’s place in the gulf of time.

One foot in the present, one in the past.

Forever at a crossroads.

Not unlike himself.

As he pondered this, a cell phone chimed to the side. Vigor turned and fished his phone out of the backpack’s front pocket. He studied the caller ID with a frown. “It’s a D.C. area code,” Vigor said.

“Must be Director Crowe,” Gray warned. “Don’t mention anything. Stay on as short as possible to avoid any trace. In fact, we should pull the cell’s battery afterward so it’s not passively tracked.”

Vigor rolled his eyes at his paranoia and flipped his phone open. “Pronto,” he greeted.

Vigor listened for a few moments, his brow growing more and more furrowed. “Chi Parla?” he asked with a bit of heat. Whatever he heard seemed to shake him up. He turned and held the phone out for Gray.

“Is it Director Crowe?” he asked sotto voce.

Vigor shook his head. “You’d better take it.”

Gray accepted the phone and lifted it to his ear. “Hello?”

The voice that came on the line was instantly recognizable, the Egyptian accent clear. Nasser’s words drained all the heat from the air.

“I have your mother and father.”

8 Patient Zero

So much for his rescue efforts…

Standing in the midship elevator, Monk balanced a lunch tray on an upraised palm. He carried his assault rifle over his other shoulder. From small speakers, an ABBA song played, an acoustic version. The ride from the ship’s cramped kitchens to the top deck took long enough that he was humming along with the music by the time he reached his floor.

Oh, dear God…

The doors finally opened, allowing Monk to escape. He tromped down the hall toward the guards who flanked the double doors at the end. He mumbled under his breath, practicing his Malay. Jessie had stolen some dye to stain Monk’s face and hands to match the other pirates, similar to the disguise of the dead man in Lisa’s cabin, whose body Monk had discreetly dumped overboard.

Out of sight, out of mind.

To finish his own disguise Monk kept his head scarf over the lower half of his face, playing the role to the hilt.

When in Rome.

Over the past day and night Jessie had trained Monk in some of the more common Malay phrases, the official language of the pirates here. Unfortunately Monk hadn’t learned enough to talk his way past the cordon of security established around Lisa. He and Jessie had scouted the ship and discovered that all the scientific heads and their immediate support staff had been herded to one floor, while the medical staff continued ministering to the sick throughout the ship.

Unfortunately, Lisa’s background in physiology must have been discerned. She was isolated in the scientific wing, barricaded and under tight security. It seemed only the elite of the pirates, under the immediate supervision of their leader, a tattooed Maori named Rakao, manned these posts. The radio room was equally guarded. Jessie had learned that much by folding himself into the pirate’s flock with his fluent use of their language.

In the interim Monk had become little more than Jessie’s muscle. There was not much else he could do. Even if Monk tried a John Wayne assault on the scientific wing, how would he escape with Lisa? And go where? While still cruising at top speeds, they’d have to make a jump overboard. Not the wisest plan.

Earlier this morning Monk had studied the waters from an open deck. The Mistress of the Seas cruised deep among the Indonesian islands. They were lost in a maze of smaller atolls, a thousand jungle-frosted fingers pointing skyward. If they escaped, swam to one of those islands, they’d be easily hunted down.

That is, if they made it past the tiger sharks.

So Monk had to bide his time.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t accomplish something.

Like now.

Serving lunch.

It was a good plan. He needed to open a means of communication with Lisa. To let her know she wasn’t alone, but more importantly so they could coordinate whenever Monk was ready to take action. And as he could not reach Lisa directly, he needed an intermediary.

Monk reached the double door. He lifted his tray toward the pair of guards and mumbled his way through the Malay equivalent of “the lunch bell has rung.”

One of them turned and pounded the butt of his rifle against the door. A moment later, a guard, who was stationed inside, opened the door. He spotted Monk and waved him into the presidential suite of the ship.

A butler in full tails and regalia met Monk at the entrance. He tried to take the tray from Monk, but playing up the pirate act, Monk tried a fierce Malay equivalent of aaargh, and shouldered the man roughly aside. The butler tumbled back, arms wheeling, which earned a chuckled grunt from the door guard.

Monk entered the main salon of the suite. A puff of smoke from a deck chair on the outside balcony alerted him to his target.

Ryder Blunt lounged in a ship’s robe and flowered swim trunks, ankles crossed, his hair an unkempt blond mop. He was smoking a thick stogie, watching the steep islands slowly pass. Escape was so close, yet so far away. To match the ominous mood, a stack of dark clouds climbed the horizon.

As Monk joined him, the billionaire didn’t even bother to glance his way. It was the habit of the rich, ever a blind eye to their wait staff. Or maybe it was merely disdain toward the pirate serving his lunch. Ryder’s butler had already set up a side table.

Silver and crystal and ironed napkins.

It must be good to be king.

Monk lowered the tray to the table and whispered in the man’s ear as he bent down. “Don’t react,” Monk said in English. “I’m Monk Kokkalis with the American envoy.”

The only reaction from the billionaire was a more fierce exhalation of smoke. “Dr. Cummings’s partner,” he sighed back. “We thought you were dead. The pirates sent after you—”

Monk didn’t have time to explain. “Yeah, about them…they caught a bad case of the crabs.”

The butler came to the doorway of the balcony.

Ryder waved him off, speaking loudly. “That’ll be all, Peter. Thank you.”

Monk unloaded the tray. He lifted one of the silver covers over the hot plate and revealed two small radios beneath it. “An extra serving for you and Lisa.” He covered it back up and revealed what was under the second plate. “And of course, a bit of dessert.”

Two small-caliber handguns.

One for Ryder and one for Lisa.

The billionaire’s eyes widened. Monk read the understanding.

“When…?” Ryder asked.

“We’ll coordinate with the radios. Channel eight. The pirates aren’t using it.” Monk and Jessie had been using that bandwidth all day, with no one the wiser. “Can you get a radio and gun to Lisa?”

“I’ll do my best,” he said, but followed it with a determined nod.

Monk straightened. He dared not tarry any longer or the guards would get suspicious. “Oh, and there’s rice pudding under the last tray.”

Monk headed back to the main salon. He heard Ryder’s mumbled comment: “Bloody disgusting stuff…whoever thought to put rice in pudding?”

Monk sighed. The rich were never happier than when they had something to complain about. He reached the double doors and headed out. One of the guards asked him something in Malay.

As answer, Monk dug a finger in his nose, looking very busy and determined, grumbled nonsensically, and continued down to the elevator.

Luckily, the cage was still there and the doors opened immediately. He ducked inside just in time to hear the next ABBA melody begin.

He groaned.

The radio at his side chirped. Monk freed it and brought it to his lips. “What is it?” he said.

“Meet me in the room,” Jessie said. “I’m heading down there now.”

The two of them had found an empty cabin to share and made it their base of operations.

“What’s up?”

“I just heard. The ship’s captain expects to reach some port today. They’re spiking the engines to reach it before nightfall. Word from the weather band is that a storm cell, moving through the Indonesian islands, is escalating toward typhoon status. So they have to go to port.”

“Meet you down at the room,” Monk said, signing off.

Hooking the radio to his belt, Monk closed his eyes. Maybe this was their first bit of luck. He calculated in his head, while reflexively mouthing the words to “Take a Chance on Me” by ABBA.

It was a pretty good song.

Lisa stared down at her patient. The woman was dressed in a blue hospital gown, wired and tubed to all manner of monitoring equipment. A pair of orderlies waited in the other room.

Lisa had asked for a moment of privacy.

She stood beside the bed, fighting a thread of guilt.

Lisa knew the patient’s statistics by heart: Caucasian female, five-foot-four, 110 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, an appendectomy scar on her left side. Radiographs had revealed an old healed break to her left forearm. The Guild’s biographical background check even revealed the cause of the break: from a youthful accident between a skateboard and a broken curb.

Lisa had memorized the woman’s blood-test results: liver enzymes, BUN, creatinine, bile acids, cell blood counts. She knew her latest urinalysis and fecal culture results.

To one side stood an instrument tray neatly arranged with examination tools: otoscope, ophthalmoscope, stethoscope, endoscope. She had used them all this morning. On a neighboring nightstand, the previous night’s EKG and EEG printouts lay accordion-folded. She had examined every inch of strip. Over the past day, she had read through all the medical history of the patient and much of the findings by the Guild’s virologists and bacteriologists.

The patient was not in a coma. The more accurate status of the patient was catatonic stupor. She displayed marked cerea flexibilitis, or waxy flexibility. Move a limb and it would stay in that position, like a mannequin. Even painful positions…as Lisa had tested these herself.

By this time Lisa knew everything about the woman’s body.

Exhausted, she took a moment to better examine the patient.

Not with tools, not with tests, but with empathy.

To see the woman behind the test results.

Dr. Susan Tunis had been a well-regarded researcher, on her way to a successful career. She had even found the man of her dreams. And except for being married for five years, the woman’s life paralleled Lisa’s. Her fate now was a reminder of the fragility of our lives, our expectations, our hopes and dreams.

Lisa reached out with gloved fingers and squeezed the woman’s hand as it lay atop the thin bedsheet.

No reaction.

Out in the other room, the orderlies stirred as the suite’s cabin door opened. Lisa heard Dr. Devesh Patanjali’s voice. The head of the Guild’s science team pushed into the room.

Lisa released Susan’s hand.

She turned as Devesh entered the room. His ever-present shadow, Surina, slipped to a chair in the outer room and sat, hands neatly folded on her lap. The perfect companion…perfectly deadly.

Devesh leaned his cane beside the door and joined her. “I see you’ve been getting well acquainted with our Patient Zero this morning.”

Lisa simply folded her arms. This was the first time Devesh had spoken to her in any significant regard, leaving her to her study. He had been spending more time with Henri in the toxicology lab and Miller in the infectious-disease lab. Lisa had even been taking her meals alone in her room or here in the suite.

“Now that you’ve gained a complete picture of my prize patient, what can you tell me about her?”

Though the man smiled, Lisa sensed the threat behind his words.

She remembered Lindholm’s cold murder. All to teach a lesson: be useful. Devesh expected results from her, insights that had escaped all the other researchers. She also sensed that the time left alone with the patient was intended to isolate her from any preconceived bias.

Devesh wanted her unique take on the situation.

Still, she remembered his early words about the virus, what it was doing inside the woman. It’s incubating.

Lisa crossed to the patient and exposed the length of her forearm. From the medical reports, boils and bloody rashes had once coated her limbs. But presently, her skin was clear of any blemish. It seemed the virus was more than incubating inside her.

“The Judas Strain is healing her,” Lisa said, knowing it was a test. “Or more precisely, the virus suddenly decided to reverse what it had started doing to her bacteria. For some unknown reason, it has begun reverting the deadly bacteria in her body back to their original benign state.”

He nodded. “It’s flushing out the very plasmids it had once put into the bacteria. But why?”

Lisa shook her head. She didn’t know. Not for sure.

Devesh smiled, a strangely warm and companionable expression. “It’s stumped us, too.”

“But I have a hypothesis,” Lisa said.

“Truly?” His voice rang with a note of surprise.

Lisa faced him. “She’s healing bodily, but it made me wonder why she remains in a catatonic state. Such stupor only arises from head trauma, cerebrovascular disease, metabolic disease, drug reactions, or encephalitis.”

She stressed the last cause.

Encephalitis.

Inflammation of the brain.

“I noted one test conspicuously absent from all the reports,” she said. “A spinal tap along with a test of cerebrospinal fluid. It was missing. I’m assuming it was performed, to examine the fluids around her brain.”

Davesh nodded. “Bahut sahi. Very good. It was tested.”

“And you found the Judas Strain in the fluid.”

Another nod.

“You said the virus only infects bacteria, turning each into a new nasty bug, and that the virus cannot invade human cells directly. But that doesn’t mean the virus can’t float around in the brain’s fluid. That’s what you meant by incubation. The virus is inside her head.”

He sighed his agreement. “That does seem to be where it wants to get.”

“So it’s not just this one patient.”

“No, eventually it’s all of the victims…at least those that survive the initial bacterial attack.”

He waved her to a corner of the room, where a computer station had been set up. He began clicking through various computer screens.

Lisa continued while he worked, pacing at the foot of the bed. “No organism is evil for the sake of being evil. Not even a virus. There has to be a purpose to its toxification of bacteria. Considering the broad spectrum of bacteria it converts, it can’t be random chance. So I wondered: What does it gain by doing so?”

Devesh nodded, urging her to continue. But plainly her conclusions were not anything new. He was continuing to test her.

Lisa stared at the patient. “What does it gain? It gains access to forbidden territory: the human brain. Dr. Barnhardt mentioned how ninety percent of the cells that make up our body are nonhuman. Mostly bacterial cells. One of the few places that remain off-limits to viral or bacterial infections is our skulls. Our brains are protected against infection, kept sterile. Our bodies have developed an almost impenetrable blood-brain barrier. A filter that lets blood’s oxygen and nutrients reach the brain, but little else.”

“So if something wanted to get inside our skulls…?” Devesh prompted.

“It would take a major assault to bridge the blood-brain barrier. Like turning our own bacteria against us, to weaken the body enough that the virus could slip through the barrier and into the brain’s fluid. That’s the biologic advantage gained by the virus when it turns bacteria toxic.”

“You do amaze,” Devesh said. “I knew there was a reason to keep you alive.”

Despite the compliment buried in there, Lisa drew little comfort at the implied threat.

“So the ultimate question is why,” Devesh continued. “Why does the virus want to get inside our heads?”

“Liver fluke,” Lisa said.

The non sequitur was strange enough to finally regain Devesh’s full attention. “Come again?”

“Liver flukes are an example of nature’s determination. Most flukes have a life cycle that involve three hosts. The human liver fluke produces eggs that pass out of the body in feces, which are then washed into sewers or waterways and consumed by snails. The eggs then hatch into little worms that drill out of the snail and seek out their next host: some passing fish. The fish is then caught, consumed by humans, where the worm travels to the liver, and grows into an adult fluke, where it lives happily ever after.”

“Your point being?”

“The Judas Strain may be doing something along this line. Especially if you consider the Lancet liver fluke. Dicrocoelium dendriticum. It also uses three hosts: cattle, snail, and ant. But what it does in the ant stage is what I find most intriguing.”

“And that is?”

“Inside the ant, the fluke controls the insect’s nerve centers, changes its behavior. Specifically, whenever the sun sets, the fluke compels the ant to climb a blade of grass, lock its mandible, and wait to be eaten by a grazing cow. If not eaten, the ant returns to its nest at sunrise — only to repeat the same thing again the next night. The fluke literally drives the ant like its own little car.”

“And you think the virus is doing that?” Devesh said.

“Possibly in some manner. But I mostly bring this up to remind you how insidious nature can be in finding territory to exploit. And the brain, sterile and off-limits, is certainly virgin territory. Nature will try to exploit it, like the fluke with the ant.”

“Brilliant. Definitely an angle to pursue. But there may be a fly in that particular ointment.” Devesh returned to the computer. He had been uploading a Quicktime video. “I mentioned that the virus has been penetrating into the cerebrospinal fluid of all the patients that survived the initial bacterial assault. Here is what happens when it does.”

He clicked the play button.

A silent video began to run. Two white-smocked men struggled to strap down a writhing naked man, his head shaved, wires running from electrodes attached to skull and chest. He fought, snarling and frothing. Though he was plainly debilitated, with sores and blackened boils, one arm ripped free of the tied cuffs. A clawed hand raked one of the restrainers. The patient then reared up and bit deep into the same man’s forearm.

The video ended.

Devesh switched off the monitor. “We’re already getting reports of similar manic responses from some of the patients, those earliest exposed.”

“It could be another form of catatonia. Catatonic stupor is just one form.” Lisa nodded to the patient in the bed. “But there is also an opposite reaction, its mirror image: catatonic excitement. Characterized by extreme hyperactivity, severe facial grimaces, animal-like shrieks, and psychotic violence.”

Devesh stood and turned back to the hospital bed. “Two sides of the same coin,” he mumbled, and studied the prone woman.

“The man in the video,” Lisa asked. She had noted the background in the video. The film had not been taken aboard the cruise ship. “Who was he?”

Devesh nodded sadly toward the bed. “Her husband.”

Lisa tensed at the revelation. She stared at the woman sprawled on the bed. Her husband…

“The pair were exposed at the same time,” Devesh said. “Found on a yacht that had become grounded on a reef near Christmas Island. Your John Doe below, with the flesh-eating disease, must have swum to shore. We recovered these two, still aboard the yacht. Too weak, near to death.”

So that was how the Guild first learned about all this.

Devesh nodded to the woman. “Which of course begs the question, Why did her husband have a complete schizoid breakdown, while our patient here is on the way to healing her external wounds and remains happily complacent and catatonic? We believe a possible cure for everyone lies in that answer.”

Lisa did not argue. She was no fool. Despite what Devesh claimed, Lisa knew the Guild’s operation was not motivated by altruistic reasons. Their search for a cure was not to save the world. They had plans for this virus, but before they could utilize it, they needed to fully understand it. To develop an antidote or cure. And in this regard, Lisa was not at cross-purposes with the Guild. A cure needed to be discovered. The only question: How to find it without the Guild’s knowledge?

Devesh turned on a heel and headed toward the door. “You’ve made excellent progress, Dr. Cummings. I commend you. But tomorrow is another day. And we’ll need more progress.” He glanced back at her, one eyebrow raised. “Is that understood?”

She nodded.

“Most excellent.” He paused again. “Oh, and our cruise ship’s esteemed owner, Sir Ryder Blunt, has invited everyone for afternoon cocktails in his suite. A small celebration.”

“Celebration for what?”

“A welcome as we come into port,” Devesh explained, gathering up his cane. “We’re almost home.”

Lisa was in no mood to toast such an event. “I have much work here.”

“Nonsense. You’ll come. It won’t take long, and it will help recharge your batteries. Yes, the matter is settled. I’ll have Rakao escort you. Please wear something appropriate.”

He left, Surina trailing in his wake.

Lisa shook her head as they departed.

She glanced back to the bed.

To Dr. Susan Tunis.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

For the woman’s husband and for what was to come.

Lisa remembered her earlier comparisons to the patient, how their two lives had followed similar paths. She pictured Susan’s husband, wild-eyed and feral. Reminded of her own love, she hugged her arms around herself and wished for the thousandth time that she was back home with Painter.

She had spoken to him again this morning. At another of their assigned debriefings. She knew better than to attempt any subterfuge this time, reporting all was well. Still, she had been in tears by the time she was yanked from the radio room.

She wanted his arms around her.

But there was only one way to make that happen.

To be useful.

She crossed to the tray of examination tools and picked up the ophthalmoscope. Before she proceeded to the cocktail party, she wanted to follow up with an aberration, something she had kept from Devesh.

Something that was surely impossible.

One step behind.

Painter descended the stairs two at a time toward the lobby of the Phoenix Park Hotel, too impatient even to wait for the elevator. A Sigma forensic team was still a floor above, sweeping room 334. He had left a pair of FBI field agents arguing with the local authorities.

A pissing contest for jurisdiction.

This was insanity.

Either way, Painter doubted any solid evidence would be found.

An hour ago he had been woken from a catnap in the dormitory of Sigma Command. One of their tracers had finally hit. An order for a prescription refill for Jackson Pierce. The Social Security number had matched. It was the first hit since Gray and company had fled the firebombed safe house. Painter had tagged all of Gray’s aliases, along with his parents’ names, coordinated through NSA’s tracking network.

Painter had sent out an emergency response team to the pharmacy while joining another team headed to the delivery address on the prescription. The Phoenix Park Hotel. The pharmacy had confirmed the order, but the delivery person had not yet returned. An attempt to reach him by cell phone had so far failed. The pharmacy had even tried calling the hotel, but no one picked up at the extension for the room.

Upon arriving here, Painter learned why. The room was deserted. Whoever was here had already bolted. The register was signed under Fred and Ginger Rogers, an elderly couple according to the desk clerk. They had checked in alone. And paid cash. Gray was apparently not with them. Besides which, Gray would not have made such a blatant mistake, ordering a refill, triggering an alert.

And if so, what made his parents make such a risky move? Harriet was a bright woman. The need must have been dire. So why didn’t they wait? What made them cut and run? Was it meant merely to misdirect? To send them all along a false trail?

Painter knew better. Gray would not use his parents like that. He would get them to hole up anonymously and lay low. Nothing more. Something was wrong here. No one had seen the elderly couple leave.

And then there was the question of the missing deliveryman.

Painter shoved through the stairwell door and into the lobby.

The night manager nodded to him, wringing his hands. “I have the security footage from the lobby pulled and waiting.”

Painter was led into the manager’s back office. A television with a built-in VCR stood atop a filing cabinet.

“Key it to an hour ago,” Painter said, checking his watch.

The manager started the tape and fast-forwarded to the time-stamped hour. The lobby was deserted, except for a lone woman behind the desk, seated doing paperwork.

“Louise,” the manager introduced, tapping the screen. “She’s quite shook up by all this.”

Painter ignored his commentary, leaning closer to the screen.

The lobby door swung open, and a figure in a white smock strode to the front desk, presented an ID, and stepped toward the elevator bank.

Louise returned to her work.

“Did your night clerk ever see the delivery person leave?”

“I can ask…”

Painter paused the tape as the figure adjusted the smock.

A woman.

Not the pharmacy’s man.

The security footage was grainy, but the woman’s Asian features were evident. Painter recognized her. He had seen her on the video surveillance back at the safe house.

One of Nasser’s team.

Painter punched the eject button and grabbed the tape. He swung around so fast that the startled manager backed away a step. Painter held up the security tape.

“No one knows about this,” he said firmly, fixing the manager with a steady stare, doing his best to look threatening, and considering his mood, it wasn’t hard. “Not the police. Not the FBI.”

The man nodded vigorously.

Painter headed out the door, clenching a fist, wanting to pound something.

Hard.

Painter understood what had happened here.

Nasser had snatched Gray’s parents.

Out from under their noses.

The bastard had beat Sigma by only minutes. And Painter could not blame any mole for losing this particular race. He knew the reason. Bureaucracy. Seichan’s background as a terrorist had everyone on full alert, which meant everyone was stepping on everyone else’s toes. Too many goddamn cooks in the kitchen…and all of them blindfolded.

Unlike Nasser.

All day long Painter had been running into roadblocks, mostly due to bureaucratic territoriality. With Sigma under a government oversight review, other agencies tasted the blood in the water. Whoever could nab the Guild turncoat, the big fish amid all the chum, could almost guarantee some security. As such, there was little true cooperation, more a nod in its general direction.

If Painter had any hope of thwarting Nasser, he needed to cut the red tape binding his wrists. There was only one way to do that. He pulled out his cell phone. To hell with diplomacy.

He pressed a button and speed-dialed to Central Command.

The line was picked up by Painter’s aide.

“Brant, I need you to patch me through to Director McKnight at DARPA. On a secure line.”

“Certainly, sir. But I was just about to call you in the field. Communications just patched up some strange news. About Christmas Island.”

It took a moment for Painter to switch gears. “What’s happened?” he asked after a steadying breath. He paused before the hotel’s revolving door.

“Details are sketchy. But it appears the cruise ship used to evacuate the island was hijacked.”

“What?” he gasped out.

“One of the WHO scientists was able to escape. He used a shortwave radio to reach a passing tanker.”

“Lisa and Monk…?”

“No news, but details are flooding in now.”

“I’ll be right there.”

His heart pounding, he signed off, pocketed the phone, and pushed through the revolving door. The cool air did little to take the heat out of his blood.

Lisa…

He ran over his last conversation with her in his head. She had sounded tired, maybe a tad on edge, wired from lack of sleep. Had she been forced to make those calls?

It made no sense.

Who would have the audacity to hijack an entire cruise ship? Surely they must know word would get out. Especially in the age of satellite surveillance.

There was nowhere to hide a ship this size.

Monk gaped at the sight.

Sweet Jesus…

Monk stood on the starboard deck, alone, waiting for Jessie. A mist-shrouded island rose directly ahead. Cliffs climbed steeply out of the ocean, offering no beach or safe harbor, topped by jagged peaks. The whole place looked like an ancient stone crown, draped in vine and jungle.

It appeared especially ominous backlit by the black skies behind it. The cruise ship had been outrunning a storm. Off in the distance, patches of dark rain brushed from the low clouds and swept the whitecapped ocean. The winds had picked up, snapping flags and gusting with shoves to the body.

Monk kept one hand clamped to the rail as the large boat rolled in the rising storm surges, taxing the ship’s stabilizers.

What the hell was the captain thinking?

Their speeds had slowed, but their course remained dead-on. Straight toward the inhospitable island. It looked no more welcoming than the hundreds they’d already passed. What made this one so special?

Ever resourceful and fluent, Jessie had ascertained some details about the island from one of the ship’s cooks, a native of the region who recognized the place. The island was called Pusat, or Navel. According to the cook, boats avoided the place. Supposedly the Balinese witch queen Rangda was born out of this navel, and her demons still protect her birthplace, beasts who rose out of the deep to drag the unsuspecting down to her watery underworld.

Jessie had also offered an alternative explanation: But more likely it was just bad reefs and tricky currents.

Or was it something else entirely?

From seemingly out of the sheer rock of the island, a trio of speedboats jetted into view. Blue, long-keeled, and low.

More pirates.

No wonder no one dares come here, Monk thought. Dead men tell no tales.

Monk glanced around him as some men hurried past, shouting in Malay. He strained to make out the words. He checked his watch. Where was Jessie? A little translation right about now would be handy.

Monk studied the island ahead.

From international reports, the Indonesian islands were riddled with hundreds of secret coves. Over eighteen thousand islands made up the Indonesian chain; only six thousand were known to be populated. That still left twelve thousand places to hide.

Monk watched the trio of boats buzz toward them, then split away, spinning sharply with a spray of seawater. They positioned themselves to either side of the cruise ship’s bow and one directly in front. They headed back toward the island, puttering slowly in the chop.

Escorts.

The smaller ships were guiding their big brother to port.

As the island drew nearer, Monk was able to spot a narrow chasm in the cliff face, angled in such a manner as to be easy to miss. The gap appeared too small for the cruise ship, like passing a camel through a needle’s eye. But someone had done proper soundings, compared them to the ship’s dimensions and draft.

The cruise ship pushed its bow between two sheer walls of black rock. The rest of the ship had no choice but to follow. The port side scraped with a screech and tremble. Monk danced back as a spar of cliff on his side ground away a pair of lifeboats, smashing and raining down pieces.

The entire ship squealed.

Monk held his breath. But they did not have far to go. The way opened again. The Mistress of the Seas slid out of the chasm and into a wide, open-air lagoon, the size of a small lake.

Monk crossed back to the rail and gaped around. I’ll be damned. No wonder they call this place a navel.

The island was really an old volcanic cone with a large lagoon at the center. Jagged walls circled all around and made up the crown of the island. Inside, the cliffs were less steep, lush with jungles, threaded with silver waterfalls, and lined by sandy beaches. The far side of the wide lagoon was littered with palm-thatched buildings and clapboard homes. Scores of wooden docks and stone jetties prickled from the small town. Several boats were pulled up on shore for repair; others were rusted down to ribbings.

Home sweet home for the pirates.

More boats sped out to meet the arriving cruise ship.

Monk expected they weren’t coming to sell trinkets.

He searched upward, noting how the character of the light had grown shadowy when they had pushed into the lagoon. As if the storm clouds had blown over suddenly.

But it wasn’t clouds that shaded the lagoon.

Someone’s been busy, Monk thought as he craned upward.

Crisscrossed over the open cone of the volcano, a vast net had been strung. It looked fairly patchwork, built piecemeal, surely decades in its construction, possibly centuries. While the main sections were supported with steel cable and latticework, strung from one peak to the next, other areas were formed of rope and reef nets, and even older sections appeared to be merely twined grass and thatch. The entire construct spanned the lagoon like a meshed roof, an engineering marvel, artfully camouflaged with leaf, vine, and branch. From above, the lagoon would be invisible. From the air, the island would appear to be just a continuous jungle.

And now the vast net had captured the Mistress of the Seas and hid it forever from prying eyes.

Not good.

The engines cut and the ship slowed to a drift. Monk heard the chug and gentle vibration as the ship’s anchors were dropped.

A commotion toward the bow drew his attention forward.

Monk headed over to investigate. Other pirates were less stealthy and ran past him, assault rifles held in the air, cheering.

“That can’t be good,” Monk muttered.

Keeping back, Monk discovered a large crowd of the pirates gathered on the forward deck, massed around the pool and hot tub. Bahamian music blasted, courtesy of Bob Marley and his Rastafarian riffs. Many had bottles of beer, whiskey, and vodka, reflective of the mix of mercenary and local pirate. It seemed a welcome-home party was under way.

Along with games.

The pirates’ attention focused toward the starboard side of the ship. Assault rifles were shaken in upraised fists; encouraging shouts rang out. Someone had unscrewed the diving board and had it protruding out from the rail, over the water. A man was dragged forward, his arms tied behind his back. He had been beaten, bloody-nosed, split lip.

Shoved around, Monk caught a glimpse of his face over the crowd.

Oh, no…

Jessie babbled desperately in Malay — but his words fell on deaf ears. He was forced at gunpoint over the rail and onto the diving board. It seemed these were fundamentalist pirates, sticking with tradition.

Jessie teetered on the plank, poked and prodded to the end.

Monk made a step in his direction.

But a mass of pirates stood between him and the young nurse. And what could he do? Plainly Monk could not shoot his way through the throng of pirates here. It would just get them both killed.

Still, Monk’s hand drifted to his rifle.

He should never have involved the kid. He’d come to lean too heavily on him, pushed him too far. Jessie had left an hour ago, searching for any local maps of the region. Someone must have a map or could sketch one. The pirates had to be getting their supplies from somewhere nearby. Monk had urged caution, but Jessie had scampered away, eyes bright.

And look what it bought him.

With a final wail, Jessie fell from the plank’s end and tumbled into the water, striking it hard. Monk rushed to the rail, along with most of the pirates, standing shoulder to shoulder as they catcalled, cheered, and cursed. Bets were placed.

Monk let out a held breath when Jessie resurfaced, kicking hard, on his back, gasping. A pair of pirates near the bow leveled rifles at the struggling victim.

Oh God…

Shots cracked crisp, especially loud under the muffle of the netting.

Spats of splashes marked the impact.

At Jessie’s heels.

More laughter.

The kid kicked harder and writhed, swimming away from the boat.

He would never make it to shore.

One of the blue speedboats aimed straight toward his floundering shape, meaning to run him over. But at the last moment, it dodged away, swamping Jessie with its wake.

He sputtered up, looking more angry than frightened.

On his back, he scissor-kicked and used his bound arms as some sort of rudder. The guy was strong and wiry.

But the speedboat was faster.

It swung around again, sweeping back for another pass.

A laughing gunman in the back of the boat braced himself and aimed his assault rifle. He strafed the water as the boat passed between the cruise ship and the boy.

Monk cringed, knowing Jessie could not have survived this time.

The speedboat buzzed past.

And there Jessie was, coughing and sputtering. He paddled and kicked. A small cheer arose from the pirates.

Monk’s hands clenched on the rail, hard enough to rip it away. Goddamn assholes were toying with Jessie, stretching out the torture.

Although he was unable to act, refusing to turn away, Monk’s fingers tightened into a knot. His face, heated to a red-hot fire, must be glowing through the nut-brown makeup.

All my fault…

Jessie fought toward shore, on his side now, searching for how far he had to swim to reach the beach. The speedboat circled back. Laughter echoed over the water.

Jessie kicked faster. Suddenly he popped up, finding sand under his toes. He ran, fell, shoved, and dove toward shore. Then his legs were high-stepping through the lapping water. He pounded across the beach toward the dense jungle.

Go, Jessie…

The speedboat raced by. Shots were fired. Sand exploded, leaves shredded. Then Jessie dashed the last steps and vanished headlong into the forest, arms still tied behind his back.

More cheers, some disappointed groans.

Money changed hands.

But most were still chuckling, as if at some private joke.

Monk nudged his neighbor. “Apa?” he asked.

As the band of pirates here was a mix of locals and foreign mercenaries, Monk had learned that pigeon Malay passed okay. Not everyone was as fluent as the native pirates.

The gentleman at his side was missing several teeth, but was happy to show how many he had left by grinning broadly. He pointed toward shore, but he aimed higher up. A few wisps of smoke could be seen near the ridgeline. Some camp was up there.

“Pemakan daging manusia,” the pirate explained.

Same to you, bud.

The pirate must have noted his confusion and only smiled wider, showing his decaying wisdom teeth. He tried again. “Kanibals.”

Monk’s eyes widened. That was one Malay word Monk could translate himself. He stared back toward the empty beach, then up toward the trails of smoke. It seemed the pirates shared the island with a local tribe of cannibals. And like any good guests returning home, the pirates had thrown their caretakers a bone.

Literally.

The pirate at his side continued to babble and pointed toward the water. Monk only caught a few phrases, a word here and there.

“…lucky…at night…bad…” The man pantomimed with his hand, a claw rising up and grabbing something and dragging it down. “Iblis.”

The last was a Malay curse word.

Monk had heard it enough times, but he was fairly certain the man was using its direct translation.

Demon.

“Raksasa iblis,” he repeated, and babbled a bit more, ending in a whispered name, drying his grin into more of an ache. “Rangda.”

Monk frowned and straightened, leaning over a bit to stare at the water.

He remembered Jessie’s old wives’ tale. Rangda was the name of the Balinese witch queen, whose demons were supposed to haunt these waters.

“At night…” the man mumbled in Malay, and pointed to the water. “Amat, amat buruk.” Very, very bad.

Monk sighed. Just great. He stared with concern toward the forest, toward where Jessie had vanished.

Demons and cannibals.

What’s next? Club Med?

9 Hagia Sophia

With the sun blazing across the rooftop restaurant, Gray listened to the threat. It sapped all warmth out of the morning.

“If you don’t follow my directions precisely, I’ll kill your parents.”

Gray strangled Vigor’s cell phone within his grip. “If anything happens to them…”

“Something will. I promise that. I’ll send you pieces. In the mail. Over months.”

Gray heard the simple certainty in the man’s words. He turned his back on the others, needing to concentrate, to think.

“If you attempt to contact Sigma,” Nasser continued in a dispassionate voice, “I will know. You will be punished. With the blood of your mother.”

Gray’s throat had tightened to a strangled knot. “You bastard…I want to know they’re alive…unharmed.”

Nasser didn’t even respond. Gray heard a shuffle of the phone, muffled voices, then his mother came on the line. “Gray?” she gasped out. “I’m sorry. Your father. I needed his pills.” Her words ended in a sob.

Gray’s whole body trembled, teetering between fury and grief. “Doesn’t matter. Are you okay? Is Dad?”

“We’re…yes…Gray—”

The phone was snatched from her, and Nasser came back on the line. “I will be leaving them in the care of my colleague Annishen. I believe you met her at the safe house in D.C.”

Gray pictured the Eurasian woman with the dyed crew cut and tattoos.

Asian Anni.

Nasser continued, “I will be joining you in Turkey. At nineteen hundred hours. You will not move from where you are.”

Gray checked his watch. A little over nine hours.

“I have men closing on your position in the Sultanahmet as we speak. Do not try to be clever. We’ve been tracking Monsignor Verona’s phone since he left Italy.”

Vigor’s sudden departure from the Vatican must have triggered a red flag. Gray wanted to be angry at the monsignor for being so careless, but he knew Vigor did not operate at the same level of paranoia as he did. Few people did. And at the moment, Gray had no room for recriminations, too consumed by his own guilt.

He had left his parents alone.

“I would like to speak with Seichan now,” Nasser said.

Gray waved Seichan over. She went to take the phone, but Gray kept hold of it. He motioned for her to come close so he could listen in on their conversation.

With heads together, ear to ear, Seichan spoke into the phone. “Amen,” she said, using Nasser’s first name, “what do you want?”

“You bitch…for this betrayal, I’ll make you suffer in ways—”

“Yes, and you’ll beat my dog and kick my cat. I get it, sweetheart.” Seichan sighed, her breath tickling Gray’s neck. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to say our good-byes here. I’ll be long gone by the time you arrive.”

Gray tensed and turned slightly to glance at her. She held up a silencing palm and shook her head. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“My men already have you surrounded,” Nasser warned. “You try to leave, and they’ll put a bullet between your cold eyes.”

“Whatever. As soon as this little conversation is over, I’m heading out of this damn church.” Seichan glanced significantly at Gray and pointed over the rooftop wall toward Hagia Sophia.

She continued on the phone, “We weren’t making any progress here at Hagia Sophia anyway. Too many damned murals. It’s all yours, baby. You’ll never see me again.”

Gray frowned. She was plainly lying. But why?

Nasser paused, then spoke, fury thawing his icy manner. “You’ll not make it ten steps! I’ve got all the exits to Hagia Sophia covered.”

Seichan rolled her eyes at Gray, indicating her ploy.

“I’m sure you do, Amen,” Seichan finished. “Ciao, baby. Kiss, kiss.”

Seichan stepped back from the phone and held a finger toward Gray, warning him to be careful.

Gray played along. “What did you just tell her?” he snapped into the phone. “Seichan just grabbed her gun and took off out of the church. What the hell are you and that bitch up to?”

Seichan nodded with a tight smile.

Listening to Nasser swear sharply, Gray calculated in his head, struggling to catch up with Seichan’s subterfuge, pushing back his guilt and anger. It would not serve him, or his parents.

He met Seichan’s eyes. The Guild might have traced Vigor’s call, but their triangulation was not perfect. That’s what Seichan had tested with her claim of being at Hagia Sophia. The Guild knew they were somewhere in the old district in Istanbul, but not exactly where.

At least not yet.

Gray stared across a neighboring park toward the massive hulk of Hagia Sophia, with its giant flat dome, surrounded by four spiked minarets.

“What are you doing at Hagia Sophia?” Nasser asked.

Gray judged how much to say. He had to be convincing, and the best way to do that was with a bit of the truth. “We’re looking for Marco Polo’s key. Monsignor Verona decoded the script at the Vatican. It led here.”

“So Seichan told you what we’re seeking.” Another curse. “For letting her escape, I’ll have to teach you how serious we are.”

Gray read the intent to harm his parents.

“Seichan is no longer important,” Gray cut in sharply, protecting his parents the only way he could. “I have what you’re seeking. The angelic code off the Egyptian obelisk. I still have a copy.”

Nasser remained silent. Gray pictured him closing his eyes with relief. Nasser needed the angelic script, more than he needed to punish Seichan.

“Very good, Commander Pierce.” The strain from a moment ago died out of his voice. “Continue cooperating in such a manner and your mother and father will live out the rest of their lives in peace and grace.”

Gray knew that such a promise was as thin as the air he breathed.

“I’ll meet you inside Hagia Sophia at nineteen hundred hours,” Nasser said. “Search the church for Polo’s key if you like. But I have snipers at all the exits.”

Gray forced down a sneer.

“And, Commander Pierce, if you think to set up any trap, I’ll be checking back with Annishen every hour. If I’m late by a minute, she’ll start with your mother’s toes.”

The line clicked off.

Gray snapped Vigor’s phone closed. “We have to get to Hagia Sophia. Before the Guild’s men triangulate our true location.”

They began quickly gathering up their material.

He turned to Seichan. “That was risky.”

Seichan shrugged. “Gray, if you ever hope to survive this, certainly don’t underestimate the Guild. They are powerful, with many allies. Yet, at the same time, don’t overestimate them. The Guild will prey upon your fears of their omnipotence. To use that fear to weaken your morale. Just stay focused. Be cautious, but use your head.”

“And if you’d been wrong?” Gray asked with a bite of anger.

Seichan tilted her head. “I wasn’t.”

Gray breathed heavily through his nose, trying to shed his anger. His mother and father would have suffered if she’d been wrong.

“Besides,” Seichan said, “I needed a solid excuse not to be here when Nasser arrives. He’ll keep you and Monsignor Verona alive. You’re both useful. And with your mother and father as collateral, Nasser will believe he can ride you like a well-broken horse. But Nasser would shoot me on sight. That is, if I was lucky. So I needed an exit strategy that saved my life, yet still allowed me the freedom to maneuver on my own. If I’m going to have any chance of helping you.”

Gray finally got hold of his anger. Seichan’s parents weren’t the ones in danger. It was easier for her to be cavalier and take risks. She had made a cold decision, acted swiftly, and the results would serve them all.

Still…

Seichan turned away and pointed. “And I’m going to need that guy.”

“Who? Me?” Kowalski asked.

“Like I said, Nasser will shoot me on sight. Probably Kowalski, too.”

“Why me?” The large man’s face wilted. “What the hell did I ever do to him?”

“You’re useless.”

“Hey!”

Seichan ignored his outburst. “Nasser needs no other hostages, not with Mr. and Mrs. Pierce in hand. He’ll see no value in keeping you around.”

Gray held up a hand. “But what if Nasser already knows Kowalski is here with us?”

Seichan just stared at him, exasperated.

He slowly understood.

Don’t overestimate the Guild.

Frowning, Gray struggled to rid himself of his view that the Guild was omnipotent. It threatened to cripple him from acting. Steadying himself, considering all the angles, he realized she was right.

He turned to Kowalski. “You’ll go with Seichan.”

“And I’ll put him to good use,” Seichan said, swatting the former seaman on the rear.

“At least someone thinks I’m useful,” Kowalski grumbled, rubbing his backside.

With all their gear gathered up, they headed down. Seichan and Gray went last. Gray grabbed her arm as she tried to pass.

“What are you going to do?” he asked once they were alone on the rooftop. “To help us?”

“I don’t know. Not yet.”

She held his gaze a moment too long, then tried to turn away. She plainly wanted to tell him something more, but she hadn’t quite gotten the nerve yet. It was evident in the tightness of her breathing, the slight waver to her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked softly, concerned.

His tenderness only seemed to make her want to pull away more. But she sighed. “Gray…I’m sorry…” she started, looking away again. “Your parents…”

There was more than worry in her eyes and manner. There was also a measure of guilt. Why? Guilt implied responsibility. But Seichan’s involvement of Gray’s parents had been accidental. Gray had come to accept that. So where was this sudden guilt coming from?

His mind ran through various possibilities, reviewing the recent conversations. With Nasser, with Seichan. What was bothering her—

— then suddenly he knew.

Seichan had practically told him a moment before.

Don’t overestimate the Guild.

His grip tightened on her arm. He thrust Seichan against the wall beside the doorway. He leaned close, their lips almost touching.

“Oh my God…there is no goddamn mole at Sigma. There never was.”

Seichan stammered to explain.

Gray would not let her. “Nasser warned me against calling Sigma, even threatening me. Why? He knew I was aware of a Guild mole in Sigma. So why even bother threatening?” He shook her. “Unless there was no mole.”

She flinched, struggled for a moment to knock his arm away, but he clenched tighter, bruising to the bone.

“When were you going to tell me?” he asked sharply.

She finally found her voice — and it was angry, unapologetic, defensive. “I was going to tell you. After this was all over.” She sighed in irritation. “But with your parents captured, I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer…not if there is to be any hope of freeing them. I’m not that callous, Gray.”

Seichan tried to turn away, but Gray shifted to keep his eyes locked on her.

“Then if there was no mole,” he asked, “how did Nasser know about the safe house? The ambush he set up?”

“A miscalculation on my part.” Her eyes grew flinty. “And that’s all I’ll say. You’ll have to trust me that I acted in good faith.”

“Trust you,” he scoffed.

His reaction seemed to wound her, the barest lowering of her chin.

Gray did not let up. “If I had Sigma’s support from the start—”

Her face hardened. “You’d have been bogged down, Gray. And I’d be locked in some prison. Useless. I needed both of us out and away as cleanly and as quickly as possible. So I let you believe what you thought.”

Gray searched for some micro-expression, a fleeting glimpse of a contrary emotion indicative of a lie. There was none. She maintained her fixed gaze, clear-eyed, challenging. She did not even bother to hide that there was more left unsaid.

Gray scowled at her, cursing himself for not being more careful with her. “I should just let Nasser shoot you.”

“Then who is going to watch your back, Gray? Who do you have out here? Kowalski? You’re better off alone. You’ve got me. That’s goddamn it. So let’s get past this. We can continue arguing, waste what little time you have left to call Sigma, or we can sort this all out later.”

She nodded to the door. “There’s a phone in the hotel lobby. It’s another of the reasons I wanted Nasser to think we were somewhere else. By now, he probably has a trace on all public phones in Hagia Sophia. The one in the lobby should be safe. Or at least safe enough. And you’ll have to be short. We’re already running out of time.”

Gray let her go, thrusting her away.

Again a wounded expression flashed across her face.

Let her be wounded.

If he had known there was no mole, he could’ve contacted Painter from the start. At least arranged for his mother and father to be secure.

She must have read the source of his anger. She wiped her face, her voice softening, sounding bone-tired. “I thought they would be safe, too, Gray. I truly did.”

Gray wanted to snap back at her, but no words came out. Both because he was angry, but more importantly because he could not unload all his guilt on Seichan.

There was no denying the simple truth.

He had left his parents alone.

Not anyone else.

“Director Crowe, I have a secure call coming in from Istanbul.”

Painter glanced up from the bank of satellite feeds and over to the communications chief. Who was calling from Istanbul?

For the past hour Painter had been arguing with the powers that be at the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency, attempting to gain full access to ECHELON, their satellite surveillance system, to prioritize a search around Christmas Island. But such remote territory, sparsely populated, was designated low risk and not under constant surveillance. Going outside the box, Painter had finally convinced the Australian Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap to task one of their satellites to the area. But it would still take another fourteen minutes.

“It’s from Commander Pierce, sir,” the communications chief said and held out the telephone receiver.

Painter swiveled in his seat. What the hell? He took the phone. “Gray? This is Director Crowe. Where are you?”

The voice came faint. “Sir, I don’t have much time, and I have a lot of intel to pass on.”

“I’m listening.”

“First, my parents have been kidnapped by a Guild agent.”

“Amen Nasser. We know. We have a wide sweep already under way.”

Surprised silence followed, then Gray continued. “You also have to reach Monk and Lisa. They’re in danger over in Indonesia.”

“We’re aware. I’m attempting a satellite pass as we speak. If you’re done telling me what I already know, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Gray took a deep breath and quickly related what had happened since Seichan had crashed back into his life. Painter asked a few questions and pieces began to fit together like a scattered jigsaw. He had already made several realizations while he waited for the NSA to respond. He had already suspected the Guild might be involved with the incident at Christmas Island. Who else had the resources to steal an entire island’s population and vanish away? Gray just confirmed this conjecture and answered why this was all happening, even giving it a name.

The Judas Strain.

An hour ago Painter had summoned Dr. Malcolm Jennings back into Sigma’s R&D offices, hauling him from his bed. On the car ride back to Sigma from the site of the kidnapping, Painter had gone over Lisa’s last conversations. Clearly coerced, it made all her statements suspect. Like claiming the disease that so disconcerted her earlier was now just a false alarm. He had remembered Jennings’s earlier panic about the threat of an environmental meltdown. And the man’s last chilling statement. We still don’t know for sure what killed the dinosaurs.

Plainly here was something that might interest the Guild.

Painter had even guessed that Seichan’s sudden appearance and Gray’s disappearance might be related to Indonesia. Two major Guild actions, striking at the same time. Painter was not a fan of coincidences. There had to be a connection. But he never would have guessed who connected it all together.

“Marco Polo?” Painter asked.

Gray finished his story. “The Guild is operating on two fronts. A scientific arm is pursuing the current outbreak, seeking a cure and the source. At the same time—”

Painter cut him off. “A historical arm is following Marco’s path back to the same: a cure and the source.”

It now made a certain awful sense.

“And now Nasser is heading out to Istanbul,” Painter said.

“He’s probably already in the air.”

“I can mobilize resources out there, have assets on the ground in the next couple hours.”

“No. The Guild will know. According to Seichan, Istanbul is one of their major hubs of activity. They’re in all agencies out here. If they realize you’ve activated forces, they’ll know we’ve talked. My parents…you can’t. I’ll have to handle Nasser on my own.”

“But you’ve taken a huge risk as it is, Gray. Sigma’s compromised. I’ll do my best to keep this from leaking any further, but the mole here could—”

“Director, there is no mole in Sigma.”

Painter started. It took him a moment to regroup, to consider this possibility. “Are you certain?” he finally asked.

“Certain enough to stake my parents’ lives on it.”

Painter sat for a moment. He believed Gray. The prickling frustration of dealing with all the interagency squabbling washed away. If there was no mole…

Gray’s voice grew fainter. “I can’t risk staying on the line any longer. I have to go. I’ll do my best to follow this trail, to see where it leads.”

The line went silent for a moment. Painter thought Gray might have cut the connection, but then he returned. “Please, Director, find my folks.”

“I will, Gray. You can be certain of that. And when I do, tell Vigor to expect a call from his niece. It will ring a few times, then hang up. That will be the signal that your parents are safe.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The phone clicked off.

Painter leaned back.

“Sir,” the communications officer interrupted, “we should have feed in another two minutes.”

Despite the need to hurry, Gray could not stop his feet from slowing as he approached the western facade of Hagia Sophia, awestruck by its size.

Vigor noted his craned neck. “Impressive, isn’t it.”

There was no denying it.

The monumental Byzantine structure was considered by many to be the Eighth Wonder of the World. Seated atop a hill where once a temple to Apollo had stood, it overlooked the magnificent blue expanse of the Sea of Marmara and much of Istanbul. Its most striking feature, the massive Byzantine dome, glowed like polished copper in the morning sun, climbing twenty stories into the air. Other lower half domes buttressed it to the east and west, while additional cupolas spread out to either side like attendants to a queen, expanding the breadth of the massive structure.

Vigor continued an ongoing history lesson about the place and pointed to the giant archways ahead that led into Hagia Sophia. “The Imperial Doors. It was through those doors that in 537, Emperor Justinian dedicated the church and declared, ‘Oh, Solomon I have surpassed thee.’ And it was through those same doors, during the fourteen-hundreds, that Sultan Mehmed, the conquering Ottoman Turk who had sacked Constantinople, poured soil over his head in a humble act before entering the church. He was so impressed that rather than destroying Hagia Sophia, he converted it into a mosque.”

The monsignor waved an arm to encompass the four towering minarets that now rose at each corner of the grounds.

“And now it’s a museum,” Gray said.

“As of 1935,™ Vigor confirmed, and pointed to the scaffolding on the south side of the structure. “Restoration work has been almost continuous since that date. And not just on the outside. When Sultan Mehmed converted the church to a mosque, he plastered over all the Christian mosaics, as it is against Islamic law to depict human figures. But over the past decades, there’s been a slow and meticulous attempt to restore those priceless Byzantine mosaic murals. At the same time, there’s been an equal desire to preserve the ancient Islamic art from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, impressive sweeps of calligraphy and decorated pulpits. To balance such a project, the restoration work at Hagia Sophia required bringing in experts from all fields of architecture and art. Including consulting the Vatican.”

Vigor led the way across the open plaza toward the arched entrance, following the flow of tourists. “As such, I thought that I might bring someone familiar with restoration, someone who has been consulted by Hagia Sophia’s curators in the past.”

Gray remembered Vigor mentioning that he had sent someone ahead to begin the hunt for the golden needle in a massive Byzantine haystack.

As they reached the doors, Gray noted a bearded giant of a man inside the doorway, blocking the flow of tourists. He stood with his fists on his hips, glowering at everyone. But when he spotted Vigor, he raised an arm in greeting.

Vigor motioned him back into the depths of the church.

Gray followed, anxious to get off the streets, unsure if any of the Guild trackers had reached their location. Until his parents were safe, he didn’t want to rankle Nasser in any way, to make the man question Seichan’s earlier subterfuge.

Passing through the door, Gray glanced back toward the open plaza. He saw no sign of Seichan or Kowalski. Their two parties had separated as soon as they left the hotel. Seichan had purchased a prepaid throwaway cell phone. Gray had memorized her number. It was the only way of contacting her.

“Commander Gray Pierce,” Vigor introduced, “this is my dear friend Balthazar Pinosso, dean of the art history department at the Gregorian University.”

Gray’s hand was swallowed up by Balthazar’s grip. He stood just shy of seven feet.

Vigor continued, “Balthazar was the one who first discovered Seichan’s message in the Tower of Winds and helped me with the angelic translations. He’s also good friends with the museum’s curator here.”

“Lot of good that’ll do,” Balthazar groused in a deep baritone, and led the way into the main church. He waved an arm ahead. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

The man stepped aside and the view opened.

Gray gaped at the sight. Vigor noted his reaction and patted him on the shoulder.

A long barreled vault stretched a vast distance ahead, not unlike entering a train station. Overhead, a series of arches and cupolas climbed to the central main dome. A second-floor colonnade framed both sides. But the most impressive sight was not anything constructed of stone — it was simply the play of light in the space. Windows pierced walls and lined the bottoms of domes, allowing sunlight to reflect off emerald-and-white marble, off gold-encrusted mosaics. The sheer volume of empty space, unsupported by interior pillars, seemed impossible.

In awed silence Gray followed the two men down the long nave.

Reaching the heart of the church, Gray stared up at the scalloped vault of the main dome, twenty stories over his head. Its ribbed surface was decorated with rippling gold-and-purple calligraphy. Around its bottom circumference, forty arched windows allowed in morning sunlight, creating an appearance that the dome was hovering over one’s head.

“It’s like it’s floating up there,” Gray mumbled.

Balthazar joined him. “An architectural optical illusion,” the art historian explained, and pointed up. “See those ribs along the underside of the roof, like the braces on an umbrella? They distribute the weight around the windows down to the flared pendentives seated atop massive foundation piers. Also the roof itself is lighter than it appears, constructed of hollow bricks kilned in Rhodes from the city’s porous clay. It’s a masterpiece of illusion. Stone, light, and air.”

Vigor nodded. “Even Marco Polo was awed, to quote the great man, by ‘the apparent weightlessness of the dome, and the bewildering abundance of direct and indirect lighting effects.’”

Gray understood. It was also strange to know that where he now stood, Marco Polo had also stood, the two men joined across the ages by their mutual wonder at and respect for the ancient builders.

The only blemish to the effect was the wall of black scaffolding along one side that climbed from the marble floor to the top of the dome.

It helped ground Gray in his situation. He checked his watch. Nasser would be arriving before nightfall. They had less than a day to solve this riddle.

If his plan was going to work…

But where to start?

Vigor was asking the same of his friend. “Balthazar, were you able to question the museum staff? Has anyone seen anything like angelic script in here?”

The man rubbed his beard and sighed. “I interviewed the curator, talked to his staff. The curator knows Hagia Sophia from its underground crypts to the tip of its highest dome. He insists nothing like angelic script can be found anywhere. He expressed one thought, though…something you’re not going to like to hear.”

“What?” Vigor asked.

“Remember how much of Hagia Sophia was plastered over from when the church was converted into a mosque. What we may be looking for could be hidden under inches of old plaster. Or it could have been inscribed on plaster that has since been cleaned away.” Balthazar shrugged. “So there’s a very real possibility that what we seek may be gone.”

Gray refused to believe it. While Vigor and Balthazar discussed such matters in more detail, he walked away. He needed to think. He checked his watch again, a reflexive gesture. Nervous and worried. He didn’t even really see the time. He dropped his arm and crossed to the scaffolding. He should never have left his parents alone. His mother’s few words over the phone haunted him.

I’m sorry. Your father. I needed his pills.

Something must have happened. Gray had refused to take into account his father’s illness, his need for medication. Was his neglect a purposeful blindness, a refusal to accept his father’s true condition? Either way, his recklessness now threatened his parents’ lives.

Gray sank down, cross-legged, and stared up toward the dome. He fought to clear his mind. His worries, fears, and doubts would not serve him. Or them. Taking a deep steadying breath, he exhaled slowly and let the drone of the tourists fade into the background.

He pictured the church as it must have looked back in the sixteen-hundreds. In his mind, he repainted the walls again, whitewashing over the golden mosaics with plaster. He did so with concentrated deliberation. A meditative exercise. If only in his head, the old mosque came alive again. He heard the muezzin calling from the minarets over the ancient city. He pictured the supplicants knelt atop rugs, rising and falling, in faithful prayer.

In such a place, where would the next key be hidden? Where in all this vast space, with its countless anterooms, galleries, and side chapels?

As he sat, Gray spun his view of the church behind his eyes, like a three-dimensional computer model, studying it from all angles. As he did so, his finger absently traced in the plaster dust on the floor. He finally became aware of what he was drawing: the glyph of angelic script, the one inscribed on the back of Marco’s golden passport.

He stared down at the single letter while still spinning the architectural structure of Hagia Sophia around in his head.

“It was already a mosque,” he mumbled.

He tapped the four circles, what Vigor called diacritical marks.

Four circles, four minarets.

What if the symbol was more than the first key to solving the riddle of the coded map? What if it was meant also to be a clue leading to the second key? Didn’t Seichan say something about that? How the one key would lead to the next?

In his mind’s eye, he superimposed a schematic of Hagia Sophia over the symbol, positioning the minarets so it overlaid the diacritical marks. Four circles, four minarets. What if the symbol was supposed to also represent Hagia Sophia? A crude map with the minarets as anchors.

If so, then where to begin looking?

In the dust, Gray added an additional dotted line.

“X marks the spot,” he mumbled.

Vigor noted Gray crawling on his hands and knees near the center of the nave, sweeping the marble floor with his hands.

Balthazar noted the man’s actions with a raised eyebrow.

The two men crossed over to Gray’s side.

“What are you doing?” Balthazar said. “If you’re planning on checking the entire floor by hand, you’ll be here for weeks.”

Gray sat back, stared up at the dome as if gauging his position, then continued his sweep of the floor, working along the edge of the scaffolding. “It has to be here somewhere.”

“What?” Vigor asked.

Gray pointed back to where he had originally been seated. Vigor strode over and stared down at the smudged drawing in the dust. His brow crinkled.

Gray spoke. “It’s a rudimentary map of Hagia, indicating where we should be searching for the next clue.”

Vigor sensed the truth of Gray’s assessment, surprised yet again at the man’s unique ability to cogitate and analyze. It slightly frightened him.

Gray continued to crawl, slowly working a specific section of the floor, gaining a few strange glances from some passing tourists.

Balthazar tracked at his heels. “You think someone carved a bit of angelic script into the marble.”

Gray stopped suddenly, his shoulder brushing the black scaffolding. His fingers returned to a spot he had just swept over. He leaned down and blew on the tile.

“Not angelic script,” Gray said, and reached to his shirt collar.

Vigor joined him. Both he and Balthazar knelt around the tile that intrigued Gray. Reaching out, Vigor felt the marble with his fingertips.

Faintly inscribed in the tile, worn by ages and the erosion of treading feet, was the barest outline of a cross.

Gray pulled out the silver crucifix from around his neck. Friar Agreer’s cross. He tested its dimensions and shape against the inscription on the tile. A perfect fit.

“You found it,” Vigor said.

Balthazar already had a small rubber mallet in hand, removed from his belt. He tapped at the tile. Gray’s brow pinched at the man’s deliberate work.

Vigor explained, “It was how we found the hollow spot beneath the inscribed tile in the Tower of Winds. Percussion. Listening for any hidden cavity.”

Balthazar worked across the tile, meticulous, but the furrows across his forehead deepened. “Nothing,” he finally mumbled.

“Are you sure?” Vigor said. “It has to be here.”

“No,” Gray said. He sprawled out on his back, staring up. “What’s Jesus staring at?”

Vigor glanced to the vague figure of Christ in silver on the crucifix, then back up.

“He’s staring at the dome,” Gray answered. “The same dome that transfixed Marco Polo. A dome lightened in weight through the use of hollow bricks. If you wanted to hide something that would last the ages…”

Vigor craned, mouth wide. “Of course. But which brick?”

Balthazar leaped to his feet. “I have an idea.” He ran off toward the rear of the building, shoving through a German tour group.

Vigor offered a hand and helped Gray back to his feet. Gray collected the cross and hung it back around his neck.

“Brilliant, Gray.”

“We haven’t found the second golden paitzu yet.”

Vigor knew Gray had pulled Seichan aside for a private few words before they separated. “What’s the urgency, Gray? With Nasser coming in a few hours, why even bother finding the second key?”

“Because I want Nasser happy,” Gray said. Vigor read the worry in the young man’s eyes for his parents. “And to prove our use to him. We need him to keep us alive.”

Vigor sensed the man was leaving some bit of the plot unspoken. Before he could question Gray further, Balthazar reappeared and hurried back to them. Breathless, he held out a small tool. “With all the construction going on, I figured someone had to have a laser pointer or level. Handy when working across such vast spaces.”

Vigor’s colleague knelt down and positioned the laser device atop the inscribed cross and switched it on. Nothing seemed to happen.

Balthazar picked up a pinch of plaster dust and cast it above the device. A scintillation of ruby brilliance lit up the dust. “It’s working.” He craned up. “Someone will have to climb up the scaffolding to find which brick is lit up by the pointer.”

Gray nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Balthazar glanced around guiltily — then handed him a chisel and hammer. “I got these, too.” He waved for Gray to hide the tools away. “You’ll have to be discreet. No one’s allowed up there without a special artisan’s pass issued by the Turkish government. I got permission from the curator to allow one of us up there. To take some photographs. Briefly. But the guard”—he nodded to the armed sentinel by the scaffolding’s ladder—“in this day of terrorist attacks, they’ve been trained to shoot and ask questions later. If they see you take a chisel to the roof…” His voice trailed off.

“Beyond getting shot,” Vigor warned, “we can’t be discovered in any regard. If we’re kicked out…if the police are summoned…”

Vigor read the understanding in Gray’s eyes.

Nasser would know.

“And it’s not just our lives in jeopardy,” Vigor acknowledged.

Gray’s parents would suffer, too.

Sighing deeply, Gray lowered his voice, “Then we’ll need a distraction.”

Halfway up the scaffolding, Gray kept his head ducked from the low bracings as he climbed. Reaching a landing of planks, he glanced below and spotted Balthazar. The tall man’s features were barely discernible as he stood with the museum curator. Gray leaned out to spot the scaffolding’s guard. The uniformed man had stepped away from his station to get a clear view of Gray’s progress.

Under everyone’s watchful gaze, Gray continued onward. He reached the ring of windows along the bottom edge of the dome. Sunlight blazed through the arched glass. Gray caught a glimpse of the Sea of Marmara through one of them. Then he was above the windows. The way grew more shadowy. After another two minutes of scaling, he finally reached the top of the scaffolding and could touch the domed roof. In fact, he had to crouch to keep from hitting his head.

All around, vast scripts of Islamic calligraphy cascaded down the scalloped walls. Immediately overhead, the dome’s central vertex cupped an ornate spiral of gold Arabic lettering, painted against a rich purple backdrop.

Gray searched around the edge of the vertex. Small dust motes flickered with fire to the left, lit from below by the laser pointer. He spotted his target — a glowing ruby dot sighted on a deep purple section of plaster. Good. The color was dark enough that any hole in it should be hard to spot.

At least he hoped so.

Reaching the targeted brick required continuing on hands and knees as the domed roof arched downward.

Once there, Gray crouched up and felt across the plaster. There was no carving. No angelic script. No other marking.

He frowned. What if he was wrong?

Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out. Gray waved his hand across the path of the laser, lighting up his hand.

It was the signal.

Below, Balthazar bent down, casually collected up the pointer, and aimed it down the length of the cavernous nave.

As if the light had struck some gong, a loud police whistle blew from that end of the church, piercing the solemn quiet, echoing all around the interior. Confused shouts followed.

Gray stared in the direction and spotted a burst of flame. An improvised Molotov cocktail, derived from rubbing alcohol used to clean the mosaics. Vigor had set it off in a trash receptacle.

More shouts.

Gray swung around to keep the bulk of his form between the guard below and his desecration above. He lifted his tools from his belt, positioned the chisel tip where the pointer had been. He waited a tense breath, then a second whistle blew.

As it blasted, Gray struck one strong blow.

Plaster broke — along with the hollow crack of dry clay.

A chunk of brick shattered free, struck Gray’s chest, and bounced off. He snapped out a hand and caught the lump in the hand with the chisel before it could tumble to the marble floor below. Cringing internally, Gray shoved the broken shard into his shirt.

Using the chisel, he quickly levered into the heart of the hollow brick, careful of the loosened pieces. Reaching up, he examined the cavity with his fingers. Rather than course clay, it felt glassy inside, watery smooth. He searched around.

Something was up there.

He fingered it out. Gray had been expecting the golden paitzu, but instead he pulled out an eight-inch-long tube of copper or bronze, capped at both ends, not unlike a cigar holder. The object ended up down his shirt.

Casting a sidelong glance, Gray noted the small trash fire had already been smothered with an extinguisher.

Hurrying, he searched again and felt something heavy, nudged with his index finger. It took another few seconds to work the second prize out of the secret vault: another gold paitzu.

The heavy passport fell free, bobbled out of his frantic fingers, and clattered to the rungs of the scaffolding at his feet. The metal rang like a struck bell, amplified by the cup of the dome. Unfortunately, it hit at the exact moment when there was a lull in the commotion below.

Crap…

As the noise echoed away, Gray grabbed up the golden passport and tucked it into his shirt. With shouts calling up from below, he did the only thing he could. He kicked the hammer off the scaffolding and tumbled after it, arms wheeling in midair, a shout on his lips.

From the second-floor colonnade Vigor watched Gray plummet off the top of the scaffolding.

Oh, no…

Moments before, Vigor had blown the whistle at the opposite end of the church and dropped the lit Molotov he had been holding, hidden inside an unattended trash receptacle. He barely got his arm out in time, hurrying away. He had blown the whistle again — then tossed it into a potted plant. Having already donned the Roman collar of his profession, he merely had to look confused and a little scared. The guards ignored him as he rushed the length of the upper floor back toward the central nave.

He reached the center of the church in time to hear Gray shout and fall headlong off the immense scaffolding. People came running, others scattered out of the way below. A hammer struck the marble floor with a resounding crack.

Overhead, Gray cartwheeled and snagged a strut of the scaffolding with an outstretched hand. He slammed back into the bracings. His feet kicked and struggled for a purchase. He found it and scrambled back into the heart of the scaffolding. He lay on his back, plainly collecting his wits from the fall.

The scaffolding guard yelled up at him and waved another security guard to pound up the stairs to check on him.

Gray rolled back and forth, clutching his left arm, moaning.

Vigor circled back to the stairs to reach the floor of the nave. He joined Balthazar and the museum curator. The security guard helped Gray up, and half supported by the guard, the pair descended with care.

As Gray limped along, his face purpled with anger. He pointed to the hammer, the very hammer Balthazar had given him. “Don’t your workmen clean up after themselves,” he sputtered in frightened outrage. “All that commotion down here, I accidentally stepped on the blasted tool. I could have been killed!”

The curator, a slender man with a bit of a paunch, collected the hammer. “Oh, my dear sir, my apologies. Such recklessness. I assure you. It will be attended. Your arm…”

Gray was holding it to his chest. “Sprained, maybe dislocated.” He glowered at the curator.

“The police are already on their way here…for the fire,” the curator said.

Gray and Vigor shared a worried look.

If Nasser heard the police had come here…

Vigor cleared his throat. “The fire. Surely it was just a cigarette tossed by a careless tourist. Or maybe a harmless prank.”

The curator didn’t seem to hear. He had already turned to one of the guards and spoke rapidly in Turkish.

Vigor understood.

This was even worse.

“No, no,” Vigor insisted, glancing hard to Gray. “I’m sure our student doesn’t need to be taken to the hospital. No ambulance is needed.”

Gray’s eyes widened. They could not leave the church. Their distraction had only succeeded in getting them deeper and deeper into hot water.

“The monsignor is right.” Gray flexed and rotated his arm. Vigor noted a flinch. Gray really had hurt his arm. “Just sprained a bit. I’ll be fine.”

“No. I insist. It is museum policy. If anyone is injured on the premises, a hospital visit is mandatory.”

Vigor saw that there was no way to dissuade the curator.

Balthazar stepped forward, clearing his throat. “That sounds prudent. But in the meantime, perhaps there’s a place we could rest. Your office is in the basement, no?”

“Of course. No one will disturb you. I will deal with the police and summon you when the ambulance arrives. And Dr. Pinosso, please accept my sincere apologies. You’ve been so generous with your time and knowledge in the past and look how I repay you.”

Balthazar patted his arm. “Hasan, do not worry. All is well. Nerves are just shaken up. It serves my student right for not watching where he steps when on a precarious perch.”

Sirens sounded in the distance.

“This way,” the curator said.

A short time later the three of them were alone in Hasan’s basement office. It was sparsely furnished. The schematics for the church were tacked to the back wall, behind a cluttered desk. A single framed photograph of the curator, Hasan Ahmet, shaking hands with the Turkish president adorned the wall above a bank of steel filing cabinets. On the opposite wall was an ancient illuminated map of the Middle East.

Balthazar flipped the office door’s dead bolt and paced the length of the room. “There is a maze of rooms down here in the basement. You two could hide out until that Nasser fellow comes. I can go up and tell Hasan that you both left.”

“It will have to do.” Vigor sank into a couch next to Gray, who was massaging his shoulder. “We won’t have much time. Did you find anything up there?”

As answer, Gray unbuttoned the lower half of his shirt and pulled out a slab of gold and a tube of beaten bronze. He shook his shirt a bit more and a bit of ruddy clay pottery tumbled out. Gray bent down, picked it up, and placed it on the table.

Vigor began to turn away, but a bit of color from the pottery caught his eye. He retrieved the chunk of reddish clay from the tabletop.

“It’s a piece of the hollow brick,” Gray explained sourly. “I didn’t want to leave it up there. Heaven knows, things went badly enough.”

Vigor briefly examined it. On one side, a bit of purple plaster still clung to it, but on the other side, a thick skein of sky-blue glaze coated the clay. Why would someone glaze the inside of a hollow brick?

“Did you see any angelic script up there,” Vigor asked, and returned the chunk to the table.

“No. No writing, nothing unusual.”

Balthazar bent down and flipped the golden paitzu over. “But there is angelic writing here.”

Vigor leaned closer. As expected, a single letter of angelic script decorated the back side. A crude circle enclosed it.

“The second key,” Vigor said.

“But what’s this?” Balthazar asked. He nudged the tube.

Vigor picked it up. It was as thick around as his thumb, unadorned, except for the old hammer marks of its forger. “It may be a scroll tube.” He examined one end. A thin coin of bronze had been stamped over the end, sealing it.

“We’ll have to open it,” Gray said.

Vigor felt some discomfort at his suggestion. As an archaeologist, he feared mishandling such an ancient artifact. It needed to be photographed, its measurements taken, cataloged.

Gray reached to a pocket and slipped out a penknife. He opened the small blade and held it toward Vigor. “We’re running out of time.”

Taking a deep breath, Vigor accepted the knife. With a twinge of professional discomfort, he used the tip to pry the cap off the end. It popped cleanly, as if only crafted yesterday.

Vigor cleared a space on the coffee table, tilted the tube, and slid out its contents. A roll of white material dropped to the mahogany table.

“A scroll,” Gray said.

Without touching it, Vigor made an assessment from his years of study and lifetime of experience. “It’s not parchment, vellum, or even papyrus.”

“What is it?” Balthazar asked.

Vigor wished he had examination gloves for handling the old scroll. Fearful of the oils in his hands, Vigor collected a pencil from the curator’s desk and used the eraser to unroll the free edge of the material.

It fell away easily, delicate and gauzy.

“It looks like cloth,” Gray said.

“Silk.” Vigor unrolled more and more, teasing it across the length of the table. “It’s embroidered,” he said, noting the fine stitching of black thread across the white silk.

But the needlework did not form a picture or an intricate pattern. Instead, lines of cursive text, stitched into the material, spread down the length of the unrolled bolt of silk.

Gray twisted his head to read, but his frown deepened, not comprehending.

“It’s lingua lombarda,” Balthazar declared with awe.

Vigor could not take his eyes from the writing. “The Italian dialect of Marco Polo’s region.” He reached a trembling hand and followed with the pencil eraser, translating the first line aloud. “‘Our prayer was answered in a most strange manner.’”

He glanced to Gray. He read the understanding in the American’s eyes.

“It’s the rest of Marco’s story,” Gray said, “continuing where the Guild’s copy of his book ended.”

“The missing pages,” Vigor agreed, “embroidered onto silk.”

Gray glanced to the door, plainly edgy, and waved to the silk diary. “Read the rest of it.”

Vigor started from the beginning, continuing the story of Marco’s party. The first section left them trapped in the City of the Dead and surrounded by a cannibal horde. Vigor carefully translated the next part of the tale, his voice tremulous with the power of Marco’s original words.

Our prayer was answered in a most strange manner. And was thus brought about:

The story stopped there.

Vigor sat back in frustration. “There must be more.”

“Hidden with the third and final key,” Gray suggested.

Vigor nodded and tapped the stretch of silk diary. “But even from this much of the story, it is plain why this tale was never told.”

“Why?” Gray asked.

“The descriptions of the strange apparitions,” Vigor stressed. “Glowing with a ‘Blessed light.’ Offering salvation.”

“Sounds like angels,” Balthazar said.

“But pagan angels,” Vigor stressed. “Such a concept would not have gone down well with the Vatican during the Middle Ages. And remember, whoever split up Marco’s story did so during the sixteen-hundreds, during another Italian plague outbreak. Despite the disturbing content, the Vatican dared not destroy the message. Some mystics within the Church must have divided the text to both preserve and hide it. But the bigger question remains: What is still left untold?”

“If we’re going to discover that,” Gray said, “we’ll need to find that third key. But where do we begin to look? There’s no angelic script anywhere.”

“Maybe no angelic script that we could see with the naked eye,” Vigor added pointedly.

Gray nodded his understanding. He twisted around to his pack and began fishing through it. “I brought a UV light. In case we ran into any more glowing obelisks.”

Balthazar dimmed the lights. Gray ran the UV over every artifact. Even the shard of broken clay brick.

“Nothing,” he finally admitted.

Dead end.

Gray’s frustration had stretched to the tautness of a piano wire. He gave up any hope on his original plan, though it had been a long shot.

“We can’t wait any longer,” he finally admitted, checking his watch. “We have to get into hiding. Let’s gather this all together. Find a place to hole up.”

They had spent the last five minutes racking their brains, searching for some clue as to where to seek the third key. Vigor attempted to decipher a hidden meaning in the text, going over it again. Balthazar had studied all surfaces of the golden paitzu. Everyone agreed that the crude line circling the single angelic letter had to be significant, but no one could guess what it might be.

Vigor sighed and began rolling up the scroll. “The answer must be here. Seichan said the Guild’s copy mentioned how each key would lead to the next one. We just have to figure out what we’re missing later.”

Gray gathered up the last remaining artifact: the chunk of the brick itself. He tapped the plaster on the outside of the chunk. “Could there be some significance to the brick being plastered in purple? I’m assuming the false brick could have been any number of colors. They had the entire dome’s palette to choose from.”

Vigor barely seemed to hear him as he tucked the scroll back into its bronze tube. Still, he mumbled aloud. “Purple is the color of royalty or divinity.”

Gray nodded. Grabbing his backpack, he shoved the chunk inside. His thumb ran over the thick blue glaze on the opposite side. Gray remembered the inside of the brick had felt glassy.

“Blue,” he whispered aloud. “Blue and royalty.”

Then it came to him.

Of course.

Vigor realized it at the same time and sprang straighter. “The Blue Princess!”

Balthazar slid the gold paitzu over to Gray to pack away. “You’re talking about Kokejin. The young Mongol woman who traveled with Marco.”

Vigor nodded. “She gained her nickname because her name translates as sky blue.”

“But what’s the significance of her reference here?” Gray asked.

“Let’s backtrack,” Vigor said, ticking off on his fingers. “The first key was at the Vatican, in Italy, where Marco ended his journey. A major milestone. Following Polo’s route backward, we come to the next milestone here, in Istanbul, where Marco crossed from Asia and stepped for the first time back into Europe.”

“And if we trace Marco’s route further back…” Gray said.

“The next major milestone would be at the site where Marco completed the task set to him by Kublai Khan, the whole reason for the journey: to bring Kokejin to Persia.”

“But where exactly in Persia?” Gray asked.

“Hormuz,” Balthazar answered. “In southern Iran. The island of Hormuz lies at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.”

Gray glanced to the table. An island. He picked up the golden paitzu and traced the line encircling around the angelic symbol. “Could this be a crude map of that island?”

“Let’s check,” Vigor said, and stood up. He crossed over to the curator’s old illuminated map on the wall.

Gray joined him.

Vigor pointed to a small island near the bottom of the Persian Gulf, close to the mainland of Iran. It bore the same rounded shape with a distinct teardrop tip. It was almost an exact match to the drawing around the gold glyph.

“We found it,” Gray said, his breath quickening in anticipation. “We know where we have to go next.”

And that meant his plan could still work.

“But what about Nasser?” Vigor asked.

“I haven’t forgotten about him.” Gray faced the monsignor and gripped his shoulder. “The first key. I want you to give it to Balthazar.”

Vigor frowned. “Why?”

“In case anything goes wrong here, we can’t let Nasser get ahold of it. We’ll present the second key we found here as the first one. Nasser can’t know that you found a key in the Vatican.” Gray stared between them. “I assume you two kept it between yourselves.”

Both men nodded.

Good.

Still, Vigor’s frown had not dimmed. “Surely when Nasser gets here, he’ll search Balthazar and find the other golden key.”

“Not if Balthazar is already gone,” Gray said. “Like with Kowalski, I doubt Nasser knows your colleague traveled with you. Why would he suspect you came here with the dean of the art history department? By tracking your cell phone, all Nasser knows is that you left to meet us. We’ll use that to our advantage. We’ll send Balthazar with everything he needs to know. Out to Seichan. Along with Kowalski, the three of them can get a jump start and head over to the island of Hormuz. It will be up to them to find the last key. Once Nasser arrives here, we’ll have to stall the bastard for as long as possible. But for the sake of my parents, we may have to eventually send him on the right path.”

“Where hopefully Seichan will have already found the last key,” Vigor said.

“Then we’ll have something to bargain with,” Gray said.

Still, Gray knew all of these plans hinged on one last hope.

That Painter found a way to free his parents.

And of course, that Gray had not made any gross miscalculations himself.

Seichan waited inside the hotel room across from Hagia Sophia’s west entrance. She sat by the fifth-floor window. Her cheek rested against the stock of her Heckler & Koch PSG1 sniper rifle. She stared down its telescopic sight, focused on the plaza in front of the church.

She had watched the police come and go, stopping only briefly.

What had happened?

Behind her, Kowalski lay stretched on the bed, chewing on olives and cleaning five hand pistols and a 5.56 mm NATO A-91 assault rifle.

They had gone shopping, stocking up on the essentials.

Kowalski whistled around an olive pit as he worked. It was getting on her nerves as she kept her post. But at least he knew his armaments.

From her vantage, Seichan had a clear view of the street, park, and plaza. She watched for anyone taking an inordinate interest in the church, more than the typical flash-and-go tourist. She also watched for any telltale sign of someone carting heavy weaponry.

So far so good. Either that or she was losing her edge.

Through her telescopic sight, she watched everyone leaving or entering through the western Imperial Doors of Hagia Sophia. She adjusted the focal length to get a clear view of the faces. She kept inventory. To see if any of the same faces came and went, indicating someone who was canvassing the place.

She wanted to know where as many of the hostiles were positioned as possible.

In case an assault proved necessary.

So far nothing. It made no sense.

Where were Nasser’s men? They should have been here by now, taking up positions. The Guild had many resources and assets in Istanbul. The supply of arms behind her was proof enough of that. Or was Nasser operating lean? Keeping his manpower to a minimum? It was easier to blend one or two men into the scenery than a half dozen.

Still, Seichan wasn’t buying it.

“Something’s wrong,” she muttered, bobbling her view.

What was his game?

She concentrated back on her duty. A large man exited the church, crossing in large strides, not attempting to hide. Seichan focused on him, bringing up his bearded face.

That’s more like it.

She didn’t know his name, but she had seen the man before, meeting with Nasser, two years ago. A fat envelope had passed between them. Nasser hadn’t known Seichan had tailed him, spied on his rendezvous. Seichan had a series of photographs of the unknown operative somewhere in her Swiss bank vault. Something tucked away for a rainy day.

Or a sunny one like today.

“No wonder Nasser is operating lean,” she mumbled.

The bastard had someone positioned inside Hagia Sophia. That did not bode well. If this man was leaving, that meant someone else had already relieved him. She watched him stop in the plaza and take out a cell phone.

Probably calling Nasser, letting him know his quarry was safe and sound inside the church.

Her cell phone rang.

Odd.

She reached blindly to the phone, pressed talk, and lifted it to her ear. “Ciao,” she said.

“Hello,” the caller responded, his voice bright. “I am looking to speak to a woman named Seichan. I was told to call at this number, to arrange for us to get together. A certain monsignor and an American would like us to meet.”

Seichan’s skin chilled as she listened, focused on the figure, watching his lips move in synchronization with the voice in her ear.

“This is Balthazar Pinosso, with the Vatican’s art history division.”

At least Seichan finally had a name for the man in the photograph with Nasser. Balthazar Pinosso. A Guild operative. She breathed through her nose. Nasser didn’t just have someone positioned inside the church — he had someone inside their own goddamn inner circle.

Seichan mentally kicked herself. It wasn’t Sigma that had a Guild mole. The Vatican did.

“Hello,” the man repeated, with a trace of worry.

Seichan leaned her cheek tighter against the stock, taking dead aim.

Time to plug the leak.

“Kowalski…” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“The shit’s about to hit the fan.”

“Hell of about time!”

Seichan pulled the trigger.

10 Out of the Frying Pan

Thank God, the cocktail party had finally ended.

Lisa hurriedly unbuttoned the hand-beaded silk coat that overlay her black cocktail dress, a pleated silk charmeuse. The Vera Wang — designed ensemble was well over her budget, but she had found the dress spread out on her bed earlier when she returned to get ready for Ryder Blunt’s soiree, welcoming the cruise ship to the pirates’ home port.

Dr. Devesh Patanjali must have handpicked the dress himself from the ship’s luxury shops down on the Lido Deck. That was reason alone to get it off her body. Lisa had not wanted to go to the party, but Devesh had left no choice. So she had joined the other senior staff up in Ryder’s suite.

Champagne and chilled wine had flowed. Hors d’oeuvres were passed atop silver platters, borne aloft by liveried wait staff, while iced trays of caviar surrounded by toast points decorated the buffet table. Apparently there remained enough members of the ship’s orchestra still alive to form a string quartet. The group played quietly out on the balcony as the sun set, but they were forced to disband when the winds kicked up and rain began to pelt down in heavy, stinging drops.

Thunder rumbled overhead even now as the storm grew in intensity. At least the ship remained steady, sheltered in the caldera of a sunken volcano. Still, word of a typhoon and countless responsibilities had soon ended Ryder’s impromptu party.

It had lasted only a couple of hours.

Lisa stripped to her bra and panties, glad to be done with the matter. She climbed back into her jeans and slipped a loose blouse over her head, shimmying it in place. Barefoot, she crossed to the evening purse on the bed, another gift of Dr. Patanjali, a Gucci frame bag with silver tassles. The bag had a price tag still on it.

Over six thousand dollars.

Still, what it held was of far greater value. During the festivities, Ryder had discreetly passed to her a pair of party favors, which she had quickly tucked into her purse.

A small radio and a pistol.

And the news that accompanied the gifts was even more welcome.

Monk was alive!

And on board the ship!

Lisa quickly hid the gun in the waistband of her jeans and covered it with the edge of her loose blouse. Radio in hand, she crossed to the door and listened with her ear pressed against it.

There was no regular guard posted at her door. The entire wing had been cordoned off at the stairwell and at the elevator banks. Devesh had assigned an inside cabin for her, only two doors down from where her patient still slumbered in a catatonic stupor.

Satisfied she was alone, Lisa dialed the radio to channel eight and slipped on the radio’s earpiece and microphone. She pressed the transmitter. “Monk, are you there? Over.”

She waited.

A bit of static rasped, then a familiar voice spoke. “Lisa? Thank God! So Ryder got you a radio. Did you get the gun? Over.”

“Yes.” She desperately wanted to hear his entire story, how he survived, but now wasn’t the time. She had more important concerns. “Ryder said that you had some plan.”

“A plan might be too generous a term. More like a seat-of-your-pants run for your life.”

“Sounds great to me. When?”

“I’m going to coordinate with Ryder in another few minutes. We’ll be ready at twenty-one hundred. You be ready, too. Keep the pistol with you.” He gave her a brief overview of his plan to free her.

She filled in some necessary details to help him, then checked her watch. Less than two hours.

“Should I tell anyone else?” Lisa asked.

A long pause.

“No. I’m sorry. If we’re going to have any hope of escaping, we’re going to have to bolt with as few people as possible, using the cover of the storm. Ryder has a private boat in a slide launch on the starboard side. I’ve got a map from your friend Jessie. There’s a small township about thirty nautical miles away. The best hope is to reach it and raise the alarm.”

“Is Jessie coming with us?”

An even longer pause followed.

Lisa clicked the transmitter again. “Monk?”

A sigh filled her ear. “They caught Jessie. Threw him overboard.”

“What?” Lisa pictured his smiling face and propensity for stupid puns. “He’s…he’s dead?”

“Don’t know. I’ll explain more when we meet.”

She felt a well of grief for a young man whom she had only known for a few hours. Lost in that well, she could not find her voice.

“Twenty-one hundred hours,” Monk repeated. “Keep your radio with you, but out of sight. I’ll contact you again then. Out.”

Lisa removed the headpiece and grasped the radio in both hands. The physicality of the hard plastic helped center her. They would talk again in a couple of hours.

Thunder rumbled.

She clipped the radio inside her pocket, folding and tucking in the headpiece. She kept its bulge hidden by the drape of her blouse.

She stared at the cabin door. If they were going to make an escape, Lisa did not want to leave empty-handed. She knew there were reams of data and files in the room with her patient.

Plus there was a computer…with a DVD burner.

She had talked with Henri and Dr. Miller up at the cocktail party. In hushed whispers, they had related how Devesh and his team were collecting samples of various toxic bacteria produced by the Judas Strain, the worst of the bunch, storing them in incubation chambers in an off-limits lab, run by Devesh’s virologist.

“I think they’re also doing experiments with the virus on known pathogens,” Dr. Miller had reported. “I saw stacks of sealed plates marked Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis disappear into the restricted lab.”

Anthrax and the Black Plague bacterium.

Henri postulated that Devesh must be experimenting to produce a superstrain of these deadly pathogens. During their discussions, one word remained unspoken — the reason for all of this.

Bioterrorism.

Lisa checked her watch and crossed to her door. If the world was going to have any chance of stopping the myriad plagues that the Guild was collecting and producing, they needed as much data as possible from her patient. The woman’s body was healing itself, ridding its tissues of the toxic bacteria, flushing it clean.

How and why?

Lisa knew Devesh was right about Susan Tunis.

This one patient holds the key to everything.

Lisa couldn’t leave without gathering as much data as possible.

She had to take the chance.

Squeezing the door handle tightly, Lisa tugged it open. She crossed the five steps to Susan Tunis’s room. Ahead, the circular bay of scientific suites was still busy with technicians coming and going. A radio was playing honky-tonk, but the singer crooned in Chinese. The air smelled of disinfectant and an underlying earthy smell.

Lisa briefly made eye contact with the armed guard who patrolled the central space, circling the pile of discarded crates and idle equipment. Down the hall behind her, she heard more guards talking.

She ducked over to Susan Tunis’s room, swiped the card Devesh had given her, and pushed inside. As always, two orderlies manned the room. Devesh never left his prize patient unattended.

One man lounged in a chair in the main salon, feet up on the bed, watching television with the volume on low. It was some Hollywood movie shown on a shipwide broadcast. The other orderly was in the well-lit bedroom with the patient, clipboard in hand, recording the quarter-hour vitals.

“I’d like a moment alone with the patient,” Lisa said.

The large man, shaved bald and dressed in scrubs, could be the identical twin of the other. She never learned their names, internally referring to them as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

But at least they spoke English.

The orderly shrugged, handed her the clipboard, and crossed out with his partner.

Lightning flashed brightly through the balcony doors, and thunder grumbled. The world beyond — lagoon and surrounding forested island — appeared in stark relief, then vanished back into darkness with a fierce clap.

Rain pounded more heavily.

Lisa slipped on a mask and a pair of surgical gloves and crossed over to her patient. She again collected the ophthalmoscope from the tray of examination instruments. She had been monitoring a strange anomaly in the patient’s eyes, something she had kept secret from Devesh. Before she left she wanted to check one more time.

She slipped back the flap of the isolation tent, leaned down, and used a fingertip to gently peel up the lid of the woman’s left eye. Lisa clicked on the ophthalmoscope’s light and adjusted the focus. Leaning down, nose to nose, she began a funduscopic exam of the patient’s inner eye.

All the retinal surfaces appeared normal and healthy: macula, optic disk, blood vessels. The anomaly was easy to miss, as it wasn’t structural. Holding her position, Lisa clicked off the ophthalmoscope’s light source. She continued to stare through the instrument’s lens.

The back of the patient’s eye, the entire retinal surface, shone back at her, softly aglow with its own milky light. Some strange phosphorescence had infused the retinal tissues. It had started around the optic disk, where the main nerve bundle from the brain attached to the eye. But over the past few hours, the glow had spread outward and now encompassed the entire retinal surface.

She had read the historical reports of the first manifestation of the disease, an algal bloom, back at the island, how the seas had glowed with phosphorescent cyanobacteria.

And now the patient’s eyes glowed.

There must be some clue here. But what?

Based on these earlier findings, Lisa had discreetly performed a second tap of the patient’s cerebral spinal fluid. She wanted to know if anything had changed in the fluid around the brain. The results should be back by now, fed into the computer in the corner of the room.

Lisa finished her exam, shed her gloves and mask, and crossed to the computer station. It was out of direct view of the other room.

She brought up the menu for laboratory tests. Her CSF tap’s results had indeed returned. She glanced through the chemical analysis. Protein levels were rising, but little else had changed. She switched over to the microscopic exam. Bacteria had been detected and identified.

Cyanobacteria.

As she had suspected.

When the blood-brain barrier had been weakened to allow the Judas Strain virus into the brain, it brought some company.

Company that was growing and multiplying.

Anticipating these very results, Lisa had done some earlier research. Cyanobacteria were one of the most ancient strains of bacteria. In fact, they had the distinction of being among the world’s oldest known fossils. Almost four billion years old, one of the earth’s first life-forms. They were also unique in that they were photosynthetic, like plants, able to produce their own food from sunlight. If fact, most scientists considered cyanobacteria to be the ancestor of modern plants. But these ancient bacteria also proved to be very adaptable, spreading into every environmental niche: salt water, freshwater, soil, even bare rock.

And with the help of the Judas Strain, apparently the human brain.

The glow of the patient’s eyes suggested that the cyanobacteria in the brain must have traveled along the optic-nerve sheath to the eye, where they were now setting up house.

Why?

From the sample Lisa saw that a technician had performed a new microscopic scan of the Judas Strain virus. Curious, she brought the fresh image to the screen. Once again, she was faced with the true monster here: the icosahedron shell with the branchlike tendrils sprouting from each corner.

She remembered her earlier words. No organism is evil for evil’s sake. It just sought to survive, to spread, to thrive.

The file was also cross-indexed to the original viral photos. She brought those up, too.

Old and new. Side by side. All the same.

She reached to close the file, but her finger hovered over the button.

No…

Her hand began to tremble.

Of course…

Lightning cracked, blindingly bright through the balcony doors, followed by an immediate clap of thunder that made her jump. The entire ship shuddered. The balcony doors rattled.

The lightning had struck right over the ship, maybe hitting it.

The cabin lights flickered. Lisa glanced up just as they went out. Darkness fell over the cabin.

The orderlies yelled out a complaint.

Lisa stood up.

Oh. My. God.

Then the lights zapped back on with a surge of current. The computer squelched a complaint and made a loud smoky pop. The television in the other room garbled, then settled into regular movie dialogue.

Lisa stayed where she was, frozen in shock.

She continued staring down at the figure in the bed. In the moment of brief darkness, Lisa had made another discovery about the patient. Had no one ever turned out the lights in here? Or was this phenomenon new?

It wasn’t only the woman’s eyes that glowed.

In the darkness, dressed only in a thin gown, the woman’s limbs and face had glowed with a soft blush, a sheen of phosphorescence that was not evident in the bright light.

The cyanobacteria had not just spread to her eyes — but everywhere.

Lisa was so stunned that she failed to note one other detail for a full breath: the patient’s eyes were open, staring back at Lisa.

Parched lips moved.

Lisa read those lips more than heard the words.

“Wh-who are you?”

Monk listened to the radio’s earpiece as he climbed the stairs from the lower decks. He had gone down to check the access to Ryder Blunt’s private dock, where he kept his boat. It was unguarded. Few knew about the private slide launch.

“I have the electronic key to the dock’s hatch,” Ryder said. “Once I’m free, I’ll head down there, get the boat gassed up, and be ready to launch. But can you free Dr. Cummings by yourself?”

“Yes,” Monk said into the mouthpiece. “The less commotion the better.”

“And you’ve got everything prepared.”

“Yes, Mother.” Monk sighed. “I’ll be ready in a half hour. On my word, you know what to do.”

“Roger that. Out.”

Monk climbed to the next landing of the stair, crossed to a janitorial closet, and collected up the blanket, pillow, and clothes he had hidden inside earlier.

His earpiece buzzed again. “Monk?”

“Lisa?” He checked his watch. It was early. His heart thudded harder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. At least not exactly. We need a change of plans. We need room for one more.”

“Who?”

“My patient. She’s awake.”

“Lisa…”

“We can’t leave her here,” she insisted in his ear. “Whatever is happening to her is critical to everything that’s going on. We can’t risk the Guild escaping with her before we can return.”

Monk breathed hard out his nose, recalculating. “How mobile is she?”

“Weak but mobile enough. I think. I can’t judge more with the orderlies in the next room. I’m in my room where I can talk. I left her back there, feigning still being catatonic.”

“And you’re sure she’s that important.”

“Positive.”

Monk asked a few more questions, settled a few more details, revising on the fly. Lisa signed off to get ready at her end.

“Ryder?” Monk said.

“I heard,” the Aussie billionaire said. “My radio was still on.”

“We’ll have to move up the timetable.”

“No bloody kidding. When will you be here?”

Monk flipped the safety off his weapon. “I’m heading up there right now.”

Lisa returned to the infirmary suite. She had donned a sweater. She had complained earlier to the orderlies that she was cold, a simple excuse to return briefly to her room and make the radio call to Monk.

As she entered, Tweedledee and Tweedledum were still engrossed in their movie. Some shoot-out was under way on the television. Life was about to imitate art.

If all went well.

Lisa turned and crossed to the bedroom — then stumbled back a step, startled.

Dr. Devesh Patanjali stood at the foot of the bed, hands behind his back. Ahead, Susan lay sprawled on the bed, under the isolation tent, eyes closed, breathing evenly.

Devesh was not supposed to be here.

“Ah,” he said without turning, “Dr. Cummings, how is our patient doing?”

The elevator doors chimed open onto the level of the presidential suite. Monk, tired and irritable, strode out into the hall. He had a bundle of blankets and a pillow.

He crossed toward the pair of guards posted by the double doors.

One sat on a chair, the other straightened from where he was leaning against the wall.

“Go,” Monk said crisply into his radio’s microphone.

It was his signal.

A muffled gunshot rang out from behind the suite’s door as Ryder took out the man posted inside.

Startled, the guard who’d been standing by the wall swung to the door.

Monk was on him immediately. He swung up both arms, a pistol in each hand, one tucked into a pillow, the other bundled in the blanket. He shoved the pillow against the man’s back and pulled the trigger, taking out his spine. As the guard dropped, he fired a second round into the man’s head.

Before the body even hit the ground, Monk turned to the seated man, lifting the blanket-wrapped pistol.

He pulled the trigger…twice.

Lisa entered the bedroom.

“Dr. Patanjali, I’m glad you’re here,” she said, swallowing the gall that came with the lie. She needed Devesh out of here. She had told Monk only two orderlies would be here.

Devesh turned to her.

Lisa swiped some loose hair over her ear, feigning exhaustion as her heart pounded. “I had come to get some test results on a CSF tap I performed earlier. But…” She waved to the computer. “The power surge knocked out the CPU. I was hoping to review the results before I went to bed.”

“Why didn’t you order one of the men to fetch them from Dr. Pollum’s lab?”

“No one’s there. I was hoping you might expedite matters.”

Devesh sighed. “Certainly. I was just heading over to my room for the night. I’ll call down and have Pollum send you a hard copy.”

“Thank you.”

Devesh headed away, but he stopped at the threshold and turned back to her.

Lisa tensed.

“You looked quite handsome at the cocktail party. Truly radiant.”

Lisa kept her face impassive by sheer force of will. “Th-thank you.”

Then he was gone.

Shaken a bit, Lisa hurried over to Susan. Leaning down, Lisa whispered in her ear. “I’m going to begin unhooking you from everything. We’re getting out of here.”

Susan nodded. Her lips moved, exhaling a soft “thank you.”

As Lisa set to work on the IV catheter, she noted the tear tracks leaking from the outer corner of Susan’s eyes to her pillow. Earlier, Lisa had quietly explained about the fate of the woman’s husband. Lisa had read his autopsy reports, courtesy of Devesh.

Lisa squeezed the woman’s shoulder.

Luckily, Devesh had not noted her glowing tears.

Monk hurried across the outside starboard deck, hunched against the wind-lashed rain. Only a few pools of light spilled to the darkened deck. Black clouds whipped and roiled above the giant net woven across the top of the island. Flashes of lightning glowed like a distant war zone. The rumble of thunder was almost constant.

After his first talk with Lisa, Monk had scouted the proper section of deck and prepared everything he needed. But he hadn’t had time to ready a second sling. He’d simply have to haul the women up one at a time.

To accomplish that quickly, Monk needed more muscle.

Ryder pounded behind him, dressed in local rags like Monk.

Gassing up the billionaire’s boat would have to wait.

“This way!” Monk yelled above the drench of rain and gusts of wind.

A deck chair skittered past him. The winds were picking up. They needed to be out of here in the next hour to escape the worst brunt of the coming typhoon.

Overhead, the island’s woven roof shook and rattled.

Monk reached the section of deck where he had rigged a rope and fireman’s sling, stolen from out of the ship’s emergency rescue gear.

Monk pointed. “Haul it to the rail!” he hollered as he leaned over the edge.

He searched below. The curve of the ship’s hull made it hard to be certain, but two levels below him should be the balcony to the cabin where Lisa had been tending her patient. It was the point of egress for this op.

Farther below, the dark lagoon reflected the ship’s few lights, rippling gently, sheltered from the worst of the wind by the high volcanic walls. As Monk turned to Ryder, he noted some flashes of light in the water. Not reflections, something deeper. Bright blues and crimson fire.

What the hell?

A crackle of lightning shattered overhead, striking the roof net, lighting up the lagoon. Monk ducked from the thunder. Where the lightning struck, sparkling blue energies shattered outward along the steel bracings of the net, leaving momentary dances of St. Elmo’s fire. The entire structure must be grounded, acting like a massive lightning rod.

Ryder joined him at the rail. He had the coil of rope over his shoulder and tossed the sling over the rail. He lowered it with the experience of a dock lineman. The sling reached the level of the balcony, swinging in the blustering wind.

“I’ll go down,” Monk yelled in his ear. “Secure the cabin. Then haul ass back up here. The two of us will have to pull the women up.”

Ryder nodded. He had already heard the plan. Monk had repeated it, just to give the man one last chance to volunteer to go down instead.

Ryder didn’t.

Smart man. No wonder he’s a billionaire.

Monk grabbed the line, hauled himself over the rail, hooked his leg, and swung out on the wet rope. Controlling his descent with his prosthetic hand, he zipped down the rope until his feet hit the sling.

He faced the open balcony, swinging in the wind. The drapes were half closed, but the bright light inside revealed Lisa. A bear of a man had her pressed against the balcony doors, hand around her neck, lifted up on her toes.

Oh, this was already going well.

Lisa hung from Tweedledee’s arm, his hand clenched around her neck. His nose was in her face, and spittle flew as he yelled.

“What the fuck were you doing with the IV lines, bitch?” The last word was spat at her in heavily accented English.

What Lisa had been doing was removing all of Susan’s catheters — urinary, intravenous, her central line — readying her to leave as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the orderlies’ movie had ended, and Dee had gone to relieve himself, passing close enough to sense something was amiss.

Behind his brother, Dum checked on the patient. He turned and spoke rapidly in Russian. Lisa didn’t understand, but plainly something was massively awry.

Not good.

Still pressed against the balcony door, Lisa felt someone tap the glass at her backside.

Please, God, let that be Monk.

She reached behind her and just managed to stretch her index finger to the locking latch. She flipped it up.

The door slid open behind her, taking her with it.

Surprised and caught off balance by the move, Dee stumbled forward and dropped her. She tried to keep her feet, but ended up falling hard on her backside.

An arm burst through the open balcony door, grabbed Dee by the collar of his scrubs, and yanked him outside. A muffled shot followed, followed by a fading scream.

Dee was going for a swim.

Dum, on the other hand, was backing toward the foot of the bed, snatching at his shoulder holster, startled and too stunned to yell out yet. Lisa went for her weapon, but she was sitting on it.

Monk appeared in the doorway, lit from behind by a flash of lightning, soaked to the skin. He had his pistol raised. The shot would be heard, but there was no avoiding it.

Then a figure rose behind Dum, kneeling up on the bed, wobbly.

Susan.

The woman stabbed out with a scalpel, piercing the man’s neck clean through from behind. Forgetting his gun, the guard clutched both hands to his throat.

Monk lunged forward, grabbed the man’s belt, and hauled him straight out the door.

“Time to go check on your brother.”

This time there wasn’t even a scream.

Monk returned, wiping his hands clean. “So, who’s ready to go?”

The next few moments were a rush.

Lisa ran to the cabin’s door and threw the security bolt while Monk helped free the last of Susan’s leads and wires — EKG, EEG, Doppler pulse — unchaining her from the medical equipment.

Lisa slipped off her sweater and helped Susan don it, along with climbing into an extra pair of scrub pants. Though unsteady on her feet, Susan proved stronger of limb than Lisa had expected from her after five weeks of catatonia.

Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe something else.

Either way they were soon out on the balcony and into the storm. A sling bounced at the end of a rope. Monk caught it and glanced over to Susan, surprise making him pause. “Mind telling me why your friend’s glowing in the dark?”

Shying away, Susan tried to pull the sweater farther over her arm. Lisa had already demonstrated the effect earlier to Susan, by turning off the bedroom lights briefly.

Lisa waved Monk to the rope. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Monk frowned, but he clambered up, proving the strength of his upper body and the grip of his prosthetic hand.

Lisa helped Susan into the sling. “Can you hold on okay?” she asked the woman.

“I’ll have to.” Susan shivered violently.

After a bit of maneuvering, Monk and Ryder began hauling her skyward, using a ship’s post as a brace.

Lisa waited, pacing a bit.

A loud knock reached her, freezing her in place.

It came from the cabin.

She stepped to the threshold. An angry shout greeted her.

Dr. Devesh Patanjali.

He must have tried to use his key card and discovered it was privacy locked. More pounding.

Lisa backed up, leaned out over the rail, and stared up.

Susan’s feet kicked. She was being helped over the rail.

Lisa pulled out her pistol from her belt and yelled up. “Hurry! Someone’s coming!”

The wind and thunder ate her words.

A splintering crack erupted from the cabin. They were breaking inside. A rifle shot followed. Loud as a cannon blast. Startling her.

A shout echoed down to her from above.

Monk at least had heard the gunfire.

The sling dropped at her shoulder, tossed, not lowered. It banged into her. She ignored it, rushed forward to the open balcony door, grabbed the inside drape, and swept it fully closed. She slid the door shut, too.

Let them discover the empty room.

The ruse might not last long, but it could buy her an extra few seconds. She dove back around, snatched the sling, and squirmed into it. A sudden gust of wind caused it to strike her hand, knocking her pistol from her grip.

The weapon flew off into the darkness.

Damn it…

Frantic, she cinched the sling, climbed up onto the balcony rail, and kicked out.

She felt the sling jerk under her arms as the men hauled her up.

She swung back toward the balcony, just as the drape was ripped open. Lightning flashed overhead. She saw Devesh’s face widen in surprise, uncomprehending at the view of her swinging toward him.

He fell back.

In his place, Surina appeared in a dressing gown, her long black hair loose. She shoved the door open while her other arm snaked back and grabbed the cane from Devesh.

Lisa reached the end of the arc of her swing. She kicked at the woman, but Monk and Ryder had hauled her up, shortening her rope enough that the tip of her boot whished through open air.

The sling swung away again.

Surina followed, out onto the balcony, her hair whipped into a furious swirl by the wind. She grabbed Devesh’s cane in both hands, twisted it, and whipped it wide. A sheath of polished white wood flew back into the cabin, revealing the length of steel blade hidden in the cane.

Surina flew to the balcony rail.

Lightning lit the sky, turning the sword into blue fire.

Weaponless, Lisa swung back toward the woman waiting with the blade.

Monk had not waited. With the first rifle blast, he knew Lisa needed more direct help, so he left the big Aussie to haul her on his own.

Monk rappelled out on a rope. The other end was tied to a life preserver, jammed between two posts of the ship’s rail. His prosthetic hand clenched the rope with the strength of a steel clamp. His other hand pointed his pistol.

He leaped out far enough to see Lisa swinging back toward a woman with a sword. He aimed his pistol and fired.

A gust of wind threw off his aim.

The round tore a chunk out of the balcony’s wooden railing.

But it was enough to ward off the swordswoman. She fell back with a smooth twist of her body.

Ryder bellowed as he hauled hard on Lisa’s line.

At the same time, with strength born of adrenaline and terror, Lisa pulled herself up by her arms. She now stood in the sling, rather than hanging. She was above the balcony opening now. She hit the hull hard and bounced away.

Ryder yanked her another three feet up.

Monk emptied the remainder of his clip, another three rounds, discouraging anyone’s approach. That should keep everyone back.

He was wrong.

The swordswoman appeared again and leaped to the top of the rail, like a gymnast mounting a balance beam — then she leaped straight up, sword pointed high.

Lisa screamed.

The blade slid past her boot heel, sliced through her jeans, and bit deep into her left calf.

Then the sword fell away, succumbing to gravity.

Lisa stared between her toes. Surina landed on the balcony deck and stepped deftly away. She didn’t even glance back up.

Ryder drew Lisa higher yet again.

Out of reach.

Lisa lost sight of the balcony, pulled beyond the curve of the hull. Hugging the rope, she trembled and shook. Blood poured down her leg and into her boot.

She spotted Monk to one side climbing back up to the railing.

Moments later, someone grabbed her shoulders and dragged her bodily over the rail. She fell to the deck, still shaking. Ryder appeared, unwrapping a head scarf that had fallen around his neck.

“This is going to hurt,” he said, but it sounded far away.

He took the scarf, wrapped it around her burning calf, then swiftly tugged it tight. Pain bloomed through her, earning a strangled gasp from her. But the agony broke through the threatening shock.

Sound returned from out of the hollow well down which it had fallen.

Ryder helped her stand. “We have to go. They’ll be up here any bloody moment.”

She nodded. “Fine…go…yes.”

It wasn’t Shakespeare, but Ryder understood. He shouldered her up while Monk helped Susan. They were all drenched.

They set off toward the stern of the boat.

“Where…?” she asked, hobbling as fast as she could.

“We’ll never make my boat,” Ryder answered. “They’ll have the stairs and elevators covered.”

Confirming this, an alarm began to wail, sounding deep in the ship, then exploding out to the decks.

Monk pointed over the rail and down. “The public tender dock,” he said. “An hour ago, when I checked for any guards at your private launch, I spotted one of the pirates’ blue speedboats tethered down there, unmanned and abandoned.”

“The tender dock lies just as many decks down.”

Monk drew them in a limping group to the midship rail. He leaned out. “Not if we take a more direct route.”

He pointed down.

Lisa craned over. She could just make out the protruding end of the tender dock. A speedboat with an outboard motor was moored there. It must have been used to shuttle pirates between their small village and the ship.

It seemed unguarded.

“We jump?” Susan asked, dismayed.

Monk nodded. “Can you swim?”

Susan nodded. “I’m a marine biologist.”

Lisa balked. They were a good fifty feet above the water. Shouts echoed in the direction of the bow. Monk glanced at Lisa’s leg, then up to her face.

She nodded. No other choice.

“We’ll have to go as a group,” Monk said. “One big splash will draw less attention than four.”

They climbed over and held themselves steady on the rail.

Monk leaned farthest out. “Ready.”

Nods all around.

Lisa’s stomach churned, her leg throbbed. Pain made her see stars in the dark water, brief flashes of electric streaks.

Monk counted down, and they all leaped.

Arms flailing for balance, Lisa plunged feet first. She had done some cliff-diving in the past. Still, when she struck the water it was like landing on hard-packed dirt. The blow impacted her entire frame. Her knees buckled — then the sea gave way. She shot deep into the warm water. After the chill of the rain and wind, the lake felt like a welcoming bath.

Her momentum slowed, braking further with her arms out.

Then she was rising. She kicked and stroked back to the surface, breaking through with a gasp. All around, rain pebbled the water. Winds spat in contrary gusts.

Treading water, Lisa spotted the three others. Monk was already headed to the boat.

Ryder helped Susan. He glanced over to Lisa.

She waved him to the boat.

Her boots and sodden clothes made it harder, but she kept pace.

Monk reached the speedboat first and hauled himself up and into it like a beaching seal. He stayed low and surveyed the tender dock.

No shouts arose.

The ship still rang with alarms. Everyone was probably still heading to the upper deck, where the fugitives had last been spotted.

Ryder reached the boat next with Susan.

As Monk helped them aboard, Lisa closed the distance.

She was almost to the boat when—

— something struck her leg, bumping it hard.

Startled, she floundered a bit. She searched the dark waters. Something brushed against her hip. It left a tracery of green fire in the water, flashing, then gone.

Hands grabbed her shoulders.

She almost cried out. She had not known she had reached the boat. Ryder hauled her up and over the edge.

Lisa sprawled across the floor. Abandoned tools pinched her backside. She smelled oil in her hair. But she didn’t move. She breathed deeply, slowing her heart.

The engine behind her suddenly gave a watery growl. Ryder yanked off the mooring lines. Monk edged the boat away from the dock. He went slow at first, keeping their noise to a minimum.

Lisa sat up and glanced back to the dock.

A shape stepped out of the ship and onto the planks of the tender dock. Even with his face shadowed, Lisa pictured his tattoos. Rakao. The Maori leader had not been fooled. He knew there were only so many ways off this ship.

“Go!” Lisa shouted. “Full throttle, Monk!”

The engine shook, coughed a bit of water, then roared.

As Lisa stared, Rakao lifted his arm. She remembered his giant horse pistol.

“Down!” she yelled. “Everyone down!”

Muzzle fire flashed. The metal side of the boat rang from a glancing shot. The boat’s speed kicked up, churning a thick wake.

Rakao fired again, but even he must have realized it was wasted. He already had a radio to his lips.

Monk sped away from the cruise ship.

Lisa noted another speedboat appear from around the stern of the cruise ship, still some distance off. It must be returning from the beachside village. It suddenly sped faster, aiming for the tender dock.

Rakao must have summoned it, preparing to give chase.

But they had a good lead.

That is, until the engine choked with a loud clank and an oily gout of smoke. The speedboat shuddered and slowed. Lisa sat higher, twisting around. She stared down at the tools she had sprawled atop. The oily towel crumpled in the back.

The boat had not been waiting to ferry passengers between boat and village — it was being repaired.

The engine’s smoking grew worse. Its roar became a putter.

Ryder swore, climbed past her, and opened the hatch on the engine.

More smoke poured out.

Ryder scowled. “This little tinny’s gone tits up.”

Back at the cruise ship, Rakao leaped from the dock to the speedboat. It took off after them.

“We have no choice,” Monk said, turning the wheel as they weakly limped along. The engine sputtered a bit more speed. “We’ll have to make for shore. Hope for the best.”

Lisa stared at the beach, then back toward Rakao’s boat.

It would still be a close call.

Monk cajoled as much horsepower as he could. The dark forest rose before them. At least it looked dense enough to hide them.

A half minute later, the engine finally died completely.

“Swim for it!” Ryder said.

The beach was not far. Less than fifty yards.

“Abandon ship,” Monk agreed. “And haul ass.”

Once again, they all leaped into the lake. Lisa kicked off her boots and followed. Rakao’s boat roared toward them.

Only after she hit the water did she remember something bumping her earlier, her momentary panic. But right now Rakao scared her more. Having been diving all her life, Lisa had been bumped by her fair share of inquisitive sharks.

Rakao was definitely scarier.

She kicked for shore.

Glancing behind her, she noted strange flashes in the water.

Emerald, ruby, sapphire.

Scintillations, like fire underwater.

They streaked through the water, aiming for their group.

Lisa suddenly knew what had bumped her, what sped toward them, a pack of hunters, communicating with flashes of light, a predatory Morse code.

“Swim!” she screamed.

She paddled faster.

They wouldn’t make it.

It follows the scent trail of blood in the water. Lateral fins undulate and glide. Muscles pump water through its mantle and out its rigid rear funnel, jetting its six-foot bulk through the water. It clenches its eight arms into a tight point, a sleek muscular arrow. Its two longest tentacles flash with brilliance at their tips. Streaks of luminescence shiver in stripes along its flanks.

Guiding the pack.

Large globular eyes read the messages of its brethren.

Some sweep wide, others go deep.

The blood scent grows richer.

Lisa kicked and paddled in clean strokes.

Panic would only slow her.

The beach spread ahead, a silvery strand between the black water and dark jungle. It was a finish line she intended to cross.

Rakao’s boat growled behind her.

But the Maori pirate was not who she was racing.

Streaks of watery fire jetted toward her.

Drawn by her sliced calf.

Blood.

Four yards ahead, Monk and Ryder slogged out of the water, dragging Susan between them. Lisa kicked harder.

“Monk!”

With one final muscular squeeze, it sweeps toward the churn of water. It unfurls its arms, billowing them wide. Two longer tentacles shoot out, snaking through the water, blistering with yellow lights, lined by suckers barbed with chitinous hooks.

Monk heard his name called out.

Lisa paddled toward shore, looking frantic.

Only three yards away.

Behind her the pirate boat skimmed at full throttle right toward their group. Rain poured from the open sky, dimpling the lake. Beneath the surface, winking flashes of fire, like tracer rounds in the night, shot toward Lisa.

Monk remembered the stories of this lagoon.

Told by a toothless local.

Demons of the deep.

He leaped back into the water. The shore fell away steeply. In two steps he was waist-deep. “Lisa!”

She glanced to him, eyes meeting.

Then suddenly she jerked to a stop, snagged.

Her eyes widened. “Go—”

Monk lunged for her, arms out. “Your hand!”

Too late.

A flurry of tentacles exploded from the water, enveloping her. With neck-breaking speed, Lisa was twisted and slammed below, swamped away. The monster rolled briefly into view, sleek and fringed with small lateral wings, rippling with thin bands of electric flashes. A large black eye stared back, then vanished away.

One sleeved arm broke the surface, already two yards farther out. Then with impossible speed, it ripped through the water, a fish on a zipping line. The limb snapped back into the deep.

Lisa…

Monk took another step, preparing to dive.

But blasts of gunfire shattered through his shock. Rounds peppered the water, driving him back, out of the water, to the sand.

“Here!” Ryder yelled.

More shots coughed up divots of sand. Rifle fire cracked.

He had no choice.

Monk stumbled back, into Ryder’s grip, into the dark forest.

Lisa…

LISA STRUGGLED TO hold her breath, tangled within constricting arms.

Giant hooks bit into flesh, made painless by panic.

She kicked and writhed.

Eyes open.

Trailing flashes of light shot through the darkness.

This was how she would die.

Monk allowed himself to be pulled farther into the jungle. He had no choice. There was nothing he could do.

Through a break in the foliage, he stared back toward the black water.

The pirates’ boat had slowed near the beach. Rifles bristled toward shore, searching. But Rakao stood braced in the bow, a dark silhouette with long spear in hand.

With a heave, the Maori hunter drove the length of steel into the lake.

Arcs of blue lightning sizzled outward from where it struck, brilliant in the darkness, lighting up the night and the depths of the lagoon. Waters hissed with a bubble of steam around the spear’s shaft.

What was he doing?

Barely conscious, lisa gasped the last of her trapped air. A painful shock clenched through her. The squid’s embrace locked harder, experiencing the same agony, possibly even more sensitive.

Then its arms released her with a final savage twist.

Seawater burned into her nose.

Her eyes open, she saw the creature streak down into the dark depths, an arrow of emerald fire. Others followed.

Buoyancy floated her up.

Then hands grabbed her, pulled by her hair.

They were too slow.

Lisa choked in water, mouth opening and closing like a fish, as darkness swallowed her away.

From the shelter of a boulder and heavy jungle, Monk watched as Lisa was hauled from the water by her hair. Limp and boneless. Her head lolled back at an impossible angle.

Rakao tossed aside his spear.

“Some sort of cattle prod,” Ryder said. “Shocked the ink right out of the wankers.”

Rakao bent Lisa over the rail and pushed on her back. A wash of seawater splashed from nose and mouth.

One arm lifted and swatted at him.

Alive.

The pirate hauled her around and dumped her to the floor. He stared toward the jungle, then higher up the cliffs. Lightning crackled in a shattering display across the roof of the island. Winds gusted up with a whip of rain, sheeting over the lagoon.

Rakao lifted an arm and made a circling motion.

The speedboat swung around with a surge of wake, then sped back out, trailing a rooster tail of water. They were returning to the ship.

Taking Lisa with them.

But at least she was alive.

“Why are they leaving?” Susan mumbled.

Monk glanced over. In the darkness of the forest, the woman’s face and hands shone with a whispery glow, barely noticeable, but there. Like moonlight through thick clouds.

“Not like there’s exactly anywhere we can go,” Ryder said bitterly. “By morning, they’ll be hunting us.”

Monk pointed deeper into the forest. “Then we’d better get going.”

With Susan at his side, Monk headed into the higher jungle. He glanced one last time back to the lagoon. “What were those things?”

“Predatory squid,” Susan mumbled with some authority. “Some bioluminescent squids hunt in packs. Humboldt squids in the Pacific have attacked and killed people, swarming out of the deep. But larger specimens also exist. Like Taningia danae. The isolated lagoon here must be home to such a subspecies. Rising to feed. At night, when their luminescent communication and coordination work best.”

Monk remembered a story from one of the pirates, about the island, of witches and demons in the water. Here must be the source of the story. He also remembered another story of the island.

He craned up toward the jagged cliffs, framed against the dark sky. Heard past the rumble of thunder, drums pounded.

Cannibals.

“What now?” Ryder asked.

Monk led the way. “Time to meet the neighbors…see what’s cookin’.”

Supported on the tender dock, Lisa hung from the arms of one of the pirates. She was too weak to fight, too tired to care. Sodden to bone, bleeding from a score of lacerations, she awaited her fate.

Rakao was in midargument with Devesh.

In Malay.

Beyond her comprehension.

But Lisa suspected the fight was about the tattooed pirate not pursuing Susan Tunis into the jungle. Lisa understood only one word.

Kanibals.

Behind the men a robed Surina stood at the entrance to the boat, out of the rain, arms folded, back straight, patient. Her eyes were fixed on Lisa. Not cold — that implied some emotion. Surina’s eyes were a total void.

Finally, Devesh turned and pointed an arm at Lisa. He spoke in English as a courtesy to their captive. “Shoot her. Now.”

Lisa straightened in the pirate’s arms. She coughed her voice to a hoarse mumble.

She offered the Guild scientist the only thing she could.

To save her life.

“Devesh,” she said firmly. “The Judas Strain. I know what the virus is doing.”

11 Broken Glass

Shock slowed the scene down to a breathless, silent stretch.

From a second-story window of Hagia Sophia, Gray watched the back of Balthazar Pinosso’s head explode in a spray of blood and bone. His body crumpled at the waist from the impact. His arms went wide to the side. His cell phone, at his ear a moment before, went flying from his fingertips, struck the pavement, and skittered away.

The large man’s body struck next.

Vigor gasped at Gray’s side, breaking the tableau. “Oh, my Lord…no…”

Sound crashed back: the echo of the gunshot, screams from the plaza.

Gray drew back, taking an extra breath to realize the implication. If Balthazar was shot…

“Nasser knew about him,” Vigor said, finishing his own slow thought. Stunned, the monsignor caught himself on the ledge of the window. “Nasser knew Balthazar was here. The monster’s snipers killed him.”

Gray fared no better, dazed with incomprehension and guilt. He had sent the man out to a firing squad.

The screams and shouts grew worse outside, spreading inside. People ran — most fleeing to the nearest shelter, the sanctuary of Hagia Sophia.

Minutes ago, Gray and Vigor had climbed to the church’s second floor, where there was less traffic, keeping hidden. Before heading out, Balthazar had informed the museum curator that Gray and Vigor had already left, denying the need for an ambulance. They had come up here to make sure all went well.

“The police will swarm here,” Gray said. “We’ve got to hide.”

Vigor grabbed Gray’s sleeve. “Your mother and father…”

He shook his head. He had no time to consider that. Nasser had warned against any ruse. But once voiced aloud, Gray could not escape the terror. His breathing grew heavier; he became light-headed. Gray’s parents would also suffer for this mistake.

How had Nasser known about Balthazar?

Vigor continued to stare out the window. The monsignor’s fingers tightened on Gray’s arms. “Dear Lord…what’s she doing now?”

Gray turned his full attention back to the open plaza below the western facade. As people fled the square or crouched in fear, only one figure ran straight through all the confusion. She limped slightly, favoring her left side.

Seichan.

Why was she coming here?

Almost to the church, a chatter of sparks struck at her heels. Someone was shooting at her. Nasser’s men. But her sudden appearance had caught the snipers off guard. With orders to keep Gray and his companions from leaving the church, they hadn’t been expecting someone running toward the church.

Seichan sped faster, racing death.

Blindsided, Seichan cursed. So Nasser did have a sniper or two positioned out here. She had missed picking them out earlier. Then again, the snipers had plenty of time to hide well. Seichan had not anticipated a traitor among their group. Balthazar had already been at Hagia Sophia all morning, setting up a snug snare.

She dashed through the Imperial Doors and ducked against the inside wall. Were gunmen in here, too?

She searched the cavernous length of the nave. People, frightened by the gunplay, cowered in corners or shifted in maddened tides of confusion and panic. She had to find Gray and Vigor.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

A hand snagged her shirt. Reflexively, she jabbed a pistol into ribs.

Her target didn’t flinch. “Seichan, what happened?”

It was Gray, his face drawn and pale.

“Gray…we have to get out of here. Now. Where’s the monsignor?”

He pointed toward a neighboring stairwell. Vigor kept half hidden at its entrance and watched the crowd.

Seichan herded Gray over to him.

The monsignor stared back at the arched doorway, his eyes wounded with grief. “Nasser shot him. Shot Balthazar.”

“No,” Seichan said, killing any misconception. “I did.”

Vigor backed up a step. Gray swung around.

“He was working with Nasser,” Seichan explained.

Vigor’s voice turned angry. “How can…?”

“I have photos from two years ago. Nasser and Balthazar together. Money changed hands.” She fixed Vigor with a hard stare. “He’s been working with him all along.”

Seichan read the continuing disbelief. She hardened her voice. “Monsignor, who called your attention to the inscription in the Tower of Wind?”

Vigor glanced toward the doors, toward the dead man out of sight.

“Before involving you both,” Seichan pressed, “Nasser and I were playing cat and mouse throughout Italy, searching for the first bits of the angelic puzzle. No one was supposed to discover my invisible mark in the Vatican until I called you, alerted you to search the tower’s closet with an ultraviolet light. Do you think your friend just accidentally stumbled upon it?”

“He said…one of his students…”

“He was lying. Nasser told him. The bastard followed the same trail I did. Used Balthazar to recruit you into solving the riddle.”

Vigor sank to the stairs, covering his face.

Seichan turned to Gray. He stood a step away, eyes glazed, reconfiguring all the morning’s events in light of the revelation. He must have sensed Seichan’s attention.

“Then Nasser knew we were trying to betray him,” Gray said. “He knew we had the first key. He knows everything.”

“Not necessarily.” Seichan pulled Vigor up by the shoulder and shoved Gray toward the church. “It was why I had to take him out. I don’t think he had the time to call Nasser after he left you. I took him out before he got the chance and made things worse.”

“Worse?” Gray stopped, refusing to move, his eyes furious. “You could have captured him. We could have used him against Nasser. There were a thousand options!”

“All of them too risky!” Seichan stepped closer, walking into the fire. “Get this through your thick skull, Gray. Nasser’s plan, our plans…they’re all screwed. It’s clean slate time here. And we have to act now.”

His face darkened as anger boiled up. Even his eyes turned stormy. “When the bastard finds out what you did…what we did…you just got my parents killed!”

She cut him off with a resounding slap to the face, knocking him back a step. Stunned, he lunged at her. She didn’t resist. He collared her. His other hand a fist.

She kept her voice calm against his storm. “With that bastard dead, we have a small window of confusion here. We must take advantage of it.”

“But my folks—”

She kept her voice even. “Gray, they’re already dead.”

The fist tangled in her shirt trembled. His face constricted tight, red and agonized. His eyes searched her, needing someone to blame.

“And if they’re not dead,” she continued, “if he’s keeping them alive as extra insurance, then we have only one hope here.”

Gray’s hand dropped from her throat but remained clenched.

“We’ll need a big bargaining chip,” she continued. “Equal to the weight of your parents’ lives.”

In his eyes, she could see the rage beginning to subside, the tide going out, the words finally sinking in. “And the second key alone won’t do it.”

She shook her head. “We need to go silent. Have Vigor pull his cell phone battery so that it’s not tracked.”

“But how will Nasser reach us?”

“It’s time we took that control from him.”

“But when he tries to call us…?”

“Nasser will be furious. He may hurt one or both of your folks, maybe even kill one. But until he finds us, he’ll keep one alive. He’s not a fool. And that is our only hope.”

Vigor’s phone began to ring. Everyone froze a breath. Then Vigor slipped it out of his pocket. He glanced to the caller ID, swallowed, and passed it to Gray.

He took it. “Nasser,” he confirmed.

“Speak of the devil,” Seichan hissed. “One of the snipers must have called him. Needing to get further instructions. It’s probably the only reason they haven’t stormed the place already. Killing Balthazar caught them off guard. This is the only window we have.”

Gray stared down at the phone.

Seichan waited.

How strong was this man?

Gray’s fingers refused to move, clamped around the phone.

It vibrated and rang again.

He could almost feel the fury emanating out of it, an anger ready to be unleashed against his mother and father. He wanted desperately to answer it: to scream, to beg, to curse, to bargain.

But he had no leverage.

Not yet.

“Nasser must still be in midflight,” Gray finally mumbled to the phone.

“Due to touch down in five hours,” Seichan agreed.

Gray let a coldness wash through him, but his fingers tightened harder. “Up in the air, he’ll hesitate to make any major decisions. He’ll wait until his feet are on the ground before making a final assessment.”

“And if he hasn’t heard from you by then…”

Gray couldn’t say the words. He only nodded his confirmation. Nasser would kill his parents. He won’t wait any longer than that. He’ll punish Gray and move on to a new strategy.

Five hours.

“We’ll need more than the second key we found here,” he said. “More than even the third key.”

Seichan nodded.

Gray stared up at Seichan. “We’ll need to have solved the obelisk’s riddle. We’ll need Marco’s map.”

Seichan simply stared, waiting.

Gray knew what he had to do. He flipped the phone over. With fingers numb and uncooperative, he fumbled with the battery in back.

Vigor stepped up and covered his palm over Gray’s fingers. “Are you sure, Gray?”

He lifted his eyes. “No…I’m not. I’m not sure of a damn thing.” He slipped his hands free of the monsignor’s and peeled the battery off the phone, cutting the last ring in half. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t act.”

Gray turned to Seichan. “What now?”

“You’ve just thrown down the gauntlet. Nasser will be calling his henchmen. We’ve got maybe a minute or two.” She pointed into the depths of the church. “This way. Kowalski’s got a car. He’ll meet us out at the east exit.”

She led them down the nave. People milled, unsure, voices echoed. Sirens closed down upon their location. Seichan fished something out of her pocket.

“Nasser must have snipers at that exit, too,” Gray said, striding up to her.

Seichan held out her palm. “Concussive grenade. A flash-bang. We’ll detonate it in the center. As everyone goes rushing out the exits…out we’ll go, too.”

Gray frowned.

Vigor voiced his concern as they circled past a crowd of schoolchildren, all wide-eyed and fearful, clutched in a group. “If the snipers see any of us, they’ll open fire. On the crowd.”

“No other way.” Seichan sped faster. “We’ll have to take the chance. Nasser’s men may already be coming—”

A gunshot cracked loudly in the church.

Gray felt something whine past his ear. A bit of wall mosaic blasted in a shower of gold.

The crowd panicked, fleeing in all directions.

Vigor was knocked to a knee. Gray dragged him up as a second shot sparked against a marble column. The blast echoed.

Staying low, the trio fled to the side and down the length of the nave. As they reached the center, Seichan prepared to pull the pin on the grenade.

Gray grabbed her hand, restraining her. “No.”

“It’s the only way. There could be more shooters ahead of us. We’ll need to trample with them to reach the exit.”

And if we’re spotted amid the crowd, he thought, how many innocent people will be killed?

He pointed. “There’s another way.”

Still holding his hand clamped to hers, he led them all to the south side, toward the wall of scaffolding he had scaled earlier.

“Up!” he said.

However, there remained one obstacle.

The scaffolding guard had not fled his post. He remained crouched behind a wooden barrier, his rifle up, ready to shoot.

Gray snatched the grenade out of Seichan’s fingers, pulled the pin, and tossed the bomb behind the barrier. “Close your eyes!” he yelled at Vigor, pulling the monsignor down. “Cover your ears.”

Seichan crouched, her head wrapped in her arms.

The explosion felt like a kick to the gut. A sonic boom trapped in stone. A flash seared through Gray’s lids, even with his head turned away.

Then it was over.

Gray yanked Vigor up. Screams echoed, sounding muffled through the residual ring in his ears. He rushed toward the massive scaffolding. The crowds parted, fleeing toward the east and west exits.

But they weren’t going with them.

At the scaffolding, the guard was down, dazed on his back, moaning.

He’d have a bad headache, but he’d live.

Gray took his rifle and waved Seichan and Vigor up the scaffolding staircase. They’d have to move fast. The stampede would slow the shooters, but only for so long.

He clambered up after Seichan and Vigor.

“Where are we going?” Seichan called down. “We’ll be sitting ducks up here!”

“Go!” Gray said. “Get your asses up there!”

They fled around and around, leaping steps.

They reached the halfway point when a spray of automatic fire rang off the bracings, wildly shot, but effective enough to chase them off the outer stairs and into the heart of the scaffolding. They pounded along the planked flooring of this level.

Gray pushed ahead of the others. “This way!”

Running in a half crouch, Gray raced toward the nearest wall.

They were at the level where the dome rested atop the church. A row of arched windows, the same windows that both Gray and Marco had marveled over, ringed the dome’s bottom.

Gray lifted his rifle and strafed the window that lay at the end of the level. Glass shattered out. He did not slow. He reached the window, used the butt of his rifle to clear more glass.

“Out!” he yelled to Seichan and Vigor.

They flew past him as more gunshots pursued them, ringing off the steel bars and chewing through wood.

Gray followed them out, perched on an encircling ledge.

The afternoon sun blazed.

Istanbul spread below them in all its jumbled beauty, its chaotic mix of ancient and modern. The Sea of Marmara glowed a sapphire blue. Farther out, the suspended length of the Bosporus Bridge was visible, spanning the strait that led up to the Black Sea.

But it wasn’t that bit of engineering that held Gray’s attention.

He pointed to the church’s southern facade, to where the exterior scaffolding clutched that side of Hagia Sophia, under repairs.

“Down there!”

Obeying, Vigor led the way around the dome, sidling along the narrow ledge. Once even with the scaffolding, Gray leaped off the ledge and onto the sloped lower roof. He slid on his backside down to the scaffolding, holding his rifle high.

He banged into the bracings and turned around. Seichan was already coming, keeping on her feet, half running, half skiing, heedless of the risk. Vigor was more cautious, on his backside, scooting in spurts and starts.

Seichan came to a steady stop, arms out to grab a strut.

She had her cell phone out, yelling into it.

Gray caught Vigor and helped the monsignor under the railing and over to the scaffolding stairs. They fled down. Luckily there was no guard on this side. The commotion must have drawn him off.

Reaching the ground, Seichan led the way across a small greenbelt to a side street. A yellow taxicab skidded in a wishbone around the far corner, spun its tires, and sped straight at them. Seichan backed away, with a wide-eyed look of confusion.

The beat-up taxi sideswiped at the last moment and braked to a squealing stop.

The driver leaned toward the open passenger windows. “What the hell are you all waiting for? Get your asses in here!”

Kowalski.

Gray climbed in front. Seichan and Vigor in back. Doors slammed.

Kowalski took off, smoking the tires and tearing away.

Seichan fought the acceleration enough to lean forward. “This isn’t the car I left you with!”

“That piece of Japanese crap! This is a Peugeot 405 Mi16. Early nineties. Sweet for speed.”

Proving it, Kowalski revved the engine’s rpms, downshifted for the next corner, twisted the wheel, throwing them all to the left, then planted back on the power and shot out of the turn like a rocket.

Seichan hauled back up, red-faced. “Where—?”

Sirens erupted behind them, streaking around the same corner.

“You stole it,” Gray said.

Leaning forward, nose by the wheel, Kowalski shrugged. “You say carjacking, I say borrowing.”

Gray twisted around. The blazing police car was fading back, outgunned by their engine.

Kowalski sped around the next corner, throwing them all in the other direction, dictating the features of the car. “It’s got a perfect weight-to-horsepower ratio, power steering stiffens at higher speeds…oh! And it’s got a sunroof.” He lifted his hand off the gearshift to point up. “Nice, huh?”

Gray leaned back.

Kowalski lost the police in another two turns. They found themselves a minute later, puttering with the busy traffic headed out of Istanbul’s old district, lost in a sea of taxis.

Gray finally calmed enough to turn back to Seichan. “Five hours,” he said. “We need to get over to Hormuz.”

“The island of Hormuz,” Vigor elaborated. “At the mouth of the Persian Gulf.”

Seichan held a hand against her side. The exertion must be taking its toll on her. She looked pale, but she nodded.

“I know the place. Lots of smugglers and gunrunners use the island, crossing from Oman to Iran. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“How long?”

“Three hours. By private jet and seaplane. I know a man.”

Gray checked his watch. That would leave them only two hours to find the last key and use it and the others to unlock the obelisk’s riddle. His heart began beating harder again. The excitement had stemmed his fear for his parents. But now…

He held out his hand to Seichan. “I need your cell phone.”

“To call Sigma command?”

“I have to update them on what’s happened.”

Gray read her expression. She knew he was sidestepping the real reason. Still, she gave him her phone.

He sat back. In another few moments, he had Director Crowe on the line. He did update Painter on all the recent events, from the discovery of the second key through their escape.

“So it was the Vatican that had been infiltrated by a Guild mole,” Painter said, his words dropping in and out a bit. “But, Gray, I don’t think there’s much I can do for you at the island. It’s Iranian territory. Especially in such a short span. Not without alerting intelligence agencies throughout the Middle East.”

“I don’t want you to intervene,” Gray said. “Just…please…my parents…”

“I know, Gray…I get it. We’ll find them.”

Despite the promise, Gray heard the hesitation in the director’s voice, the unspoken words.

If your parents are still alive.

They were being moved again.

Harriet balanced a glass of water against her husband’s lips. Dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, he was tied to a chair. “Jack, you need to drink. Swallow.”

He fought.

“Get that pill down,” the woman barked, “or I’ll shove it up his ass.”

Harriet’s hands shook. “Please, Jack. Drink.”

Annishen was losing patience. The woman, dressed in black leather, had taken a call a few minutes ago and had called in the other guards, even those on the street. Harriet had been dragged out of the old walk-in freezer where she had been locked up all night. It was a frightening place. A single bare bulb shone upon a double row of meat hooks, hung along tracks in the ceiling. Fresh bloodstains had streaked the floor, only haphazardly washed toward the freezer’s center drain.

Then the call.

Harriet had been hauled out to attend her husband. Jack had been kept apart from her. They wouldn’t let her stay with him. She had spent the entire night fearing for his life. He had been barely conscious after being struck by the Taser in the hotel room. She was horrified to find him bound and gagged in the chair, but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

He had thrashed against his ropes when he first saw her again. But he didn’t really recognize her, not fully. He remained in a disassociative state, brought on by all the stress, the near electrocution, waking bound and gagged.

“Forget it,” Annishen finally said, grabbing Harriet’s shoulder. “The pills you gave him earlier didn’t do anything.”

“He was already agitated,” she said, begging. “It takes time…and consistency of dosage. He needs this pill.”

Annishen waved to her. “One more try.”

Harriet leaned against her husband’s cheek, holding his head with one hand, the glass in the other. He jerked back, but she held tight. “Jack, I love you. Please drink. For me.”

She dribbled water over his mouth. His lips finally parted, an animal reflex. He must be thirsty. He finally drank, gulping the offered water. It even seemed to calm him. He sagged in his bonds.

Harriet sighed in relief.

“Did he take it?” Annishen asked.

“It should calm him in about an hour.”

“We don’t have an hour.”

“I understand…but…”

Harriet knew someone must be looking for them. The longer they stayed in one place, the greater the chance they might be tracked. The more moves, the trail would grow colder.

“Get him up!” Annishen said.

The woman grabbed Harriet by the scruff of her shirt collar and hauled her to her feet. She was strong. She shoved Harriet toward the back exit. Her goons untied Jack. Her husband was slung between the two gorilla-size men, Armenian, heavy eyebrows. One held a pistol in a jacket pocket, against her husband’s back.

Annishen gripped Harriet’s elbow.

Jack howled as they began to move him, struggling. “Noooo.”

“Maybe we zap him again,” the guard said in a thick accent.

“Please don’t,” Harriet pleaded. “I can keep him calm.”

The guard ignored her.

Annishen seemed to be weighing this choice.

“It’s daylight,” Harriet said. “If you carried him out unconscious…”

“There are taverns,” one guard said. “On the street. I pour vodka on his shirt. No one think twice.”

Annishen soured at the idea. Harriet imagined it was mostly because it wasn’t her own. She pushed Harriet toward Jack.

“Keep him quiet or I’ll Tase him into a drooling baby.”

Harriet rushed to her husband’s side. She took the place of one of the guards, an arm around Jack’s waist. She rubbed his chest with her other hand.

“It’s okay, Jack. It’s okay. We have to go.”

He looked suspiciously at her, but the angry set to his eyes and lips softened. “I want…to go home.”

“That’s where we’re going…c’mon now, no fussing.”

He allowed them to lead him to the back exit and out to a narrow alley, barely large enough for the overflowing trash bin. The sunlight stung her eyes.

They were marched out to the street.

They had been in a boarded-up butcher’s shop, one of a row of closed businesses on the block. Harriet searched around for landmarks. They were somewhere in Arlington. Harriet knew they had crossed the Potomac after being kidnapped.

But where?

A black Dodge van was parked half a block away.

Morning traffic was already picking up. A few homeless men and women were gathered in an alcove of a Laundromat. A shopping cart stood by them, piled high with stuffed plastic bags.

Annishen ignored the homeless and led her group to the van. She unlocked it with her remote and the rear side door slid open on its own.

Jack walked in a leaden daze, barely noting his surroundings.

Harriet waited until they were even with the men gathered around the shopping cart. Her right hand still rested on Jack’s belly.

I’m sorry.

She pinched his skin through his shirt and twisted.

Jack jerked straight, snapping out of his passivity.

“Noooo!”

He fought the guard.

“I don’t know you people!” he hollered. “Get away from me!”

Harriet tugged at him. “Jack…Jack…Jack. Calm down.”

He swatted at her, striking her hard on the shoulder.

“Hey!” one of the homeless men called out. He was skeletally thin with a ragged beard. He clutched a bottle, snugged in a paper sack. “What are you doing to that guy?”

Some faces inside the Laundromat lifted to stare out the steamy, streaked windows.

Annishen stepped back toward Harriet. She wore a thin smile, staring straight at Harriet. One hand rested in the pocket of her light hooded sweater, the threat plain.

Harriet rubbed Jack’s belly and faced the bearded stranger. “He’s my husband. He has Alzheimer’s. We’re…we’re taking him to the hospital.”

Her words soothed the wary cast to the man’s face. He nodded. “Sorry to hear that, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

Harriet led Jack into the van. They were soon settled in, and the doors closed. Annishen sat in the front passenger seat. As they pulled away, she turned to Harriet.

“Those pills had better kick in,” she said. “Or next time, we’ll leave him hanging from one of those butcher’s hooks.”

Harriet nodded.

Annishen turned back around.

One of the men reached from the backseat and pulled a black hood over her head. She heard a moan of protest from Jack as the same was done to him. She reached a hand over and gripped her husband’s hand. His fingers gripped hers back, if only in a reflex of love.

I’m sorry, Jack…

Harriet’s other hand slipped into the pocket of her sweater. Her fingertips nudged the pile of pills — the pills she had only pretended to give her husband. Before and now. She needed to keep Jack agitated, confused enough to act out.

To be seen…to be remembered.

She closed her eyes, despairing.

Forgive me, Lord.

12 Of a Map Forbidden

The Russian seaplane, a Beriev 103, coasted up from Qeshm Island International Airport and sailed out over the aquamarine waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gray was impressed with the short turnaround at the airport. Their jet from Istanbul had touched down only ten minutes ago. The amphibious plane had been waiting: fueled, engine warmed, its twin propellers slowly turning. The seaplane sat only six people, including the pilot, three sets of paired seats, lined one behind the other.

But it was swift.

The sea crossing to the island of Hormuz would take no more than twenty minutes. They had made good time. Still, it would leave them only two hours to find the last key and use it and the others to decipher the angelic script on the obelisk.

Gray had used the time aboard the private jet, provided via Seichan’s black-market connections, to study the obelisk’s complicated code. Even on such a short flight as this, every minute counted. Seated in the back row by himself, he pulled out his notebook again, scribbled with notes and possibilities. He had already tried converting all the obelisk’s scripts into letters, like Vigor had done with the Vatican’s angelic script, which spelled out HAGIA. But he had made no real headway.

Even with Vigor’s help.

Back on the jet, the two of them had poured over the cryptogram. Vigor was better with ancient languages. But it proved no use. Decoding was made especially difficult because they didn’t know which of the four surfaces of the obelisk was the starting point, and in which direction it should be read, clockwise or counterclockwise.

That created eight possibilities.

Vigor had finally rubbed his eyes, admitting defeat. “Without the third key, we’ll never figure this out.”

Gray refused to believe that. The two had even gotten into a brief argument. They mutually decided to take some time apart, to quit banging their heads together over the riddle. Gray knew much of the shortness of his temper was tied to the knot in his stomach.

Even now he felt like vomiting. Every time he closed his eyes, he pictured his mother’s face. He saw the blame in his father’s eyes.

So Gray stopped closing his eyes and continued to work.

It was all he could do.

Gray stared again at one of the letter-substitution pages.

Seven more possibilities covered the next pages.

Which was right? Where to even begin?

Ahead, a loud snort drew his attention forward. Kowalski had already fallen asleep. Probably before the wheels even left the tarmac.

Vigor shared the neighboring seat, poring over the silk diary yet again. It was surely a dead end. The monsignor scowled at Kowalski’s racket and undid his belt. He slid back to join Gray and collapsed in the next seat. He held the scroll in his hands.

A moment of awkward silence stretched.

Gray closed his notebook. “Back there…earlier…”

“I know.” Vigor reached out and gently patted his hand. “We’re all worried. But I wanted to run something by you. Get your thoughts.”

Gray straightened. “Sure.”

“I know you want to solve the obelisk’s code. But since we’re about to land, maybe now’s a good time to figure out where on Hormuz Island the third key might be.”

“I thought we already knew where to search,” Gray said.

Unable to resist he reopened the notebook and tapped the angelic symbol found on the back of the third gold paitzu.

They had compared it to a map of the island and discovered that the blackened circle marked the location of the ruins of an old Portuguese castle, built about a century before the keys were hidden. In its prime, it had been a prominent stronghold. Built on an isthmus and separated by a moat, it had overlooked the town of Hormuz and the best anchorage ports. To those Vatican mystics looking to hide a key for the ages, the castle would have appeared to be a good place.

They were headed to its ruins now.

Vigor nodded. “Yes, the Portuguese castle. But what I meant was why are we searching there. If we knew that, we might figure out what to look for inside the castle ruins.”

“Okay, so where do we begin?”

Vigor pointed out Gray’s porthole window. The island could be seen ahead. “Hormuz was a major trading port, trafficking in jewels, spices, and slaves. Important enough that the Portuguese invaded during the sixteenth century and built their castle. But during Marco’s time, it was also important enough for Kublai Khan to send a young woman of his household here to be married off.”

“Kokejin, the Blue Princess.”

“It was purely a commercial arrangement. In fact, the Persian king to whom she was betrothed died while Marco and Kokejin were en route. She ended up marrying the man’s son. But again it was a marriage of convenience. She ended up dying only three years later. Some say at her own hand, some say because she was pining for another love.”

Gray turned. “You don’t mean—”

“Even Marco did not marry until after Kokejin was dead. And when Marco did die, he had two treasures in his room. The gold paitzu that Kublai Khan had given to him. But also a golden headpiece, encrusted with jewels.” Vigor stared pointedly at him. “A princess’s headpiece.”

Gray straightened, imagining Marco’s long two-year voyage, traveling and exploring exotic lands. Marco was still relatively young when he left Kublai Khan’s palace, in his midthirties. Kokejin was seventeen when she left China, nineteen when she reached Persia. It was not impossible to imagine them falling in love, a love that could never last beyond Hormuz.

Gray rubbed at the headache he’d been fighting. He remembered the brick back at Hagia Sophia, the interior glazed in royal blue, a secret hidden in stone. But could the brick also represent Marco’s heart, symbolic of his secret love for Kokejin?

“Then we’ve forgotten another clue left to us,” Vigor continued. He lifted the scroll. “The story was embroidered on silk. Why silk?”

Gray shrugged. “It’s a material from the Far East, where Marco had traveled.”

“Yes, but could it signify something more?”

Gray remembered Vigor bent over the scripture, even examining it with a loupe. “What did you discover?” he asked.

The monsignor lifted the scroll. “This silk was not new when it was embroidered with the text. The silk was worn thin and uneven. I found oils and old stains.”

“So it was a used piece of silk.”

“But what was it used for?” Vigor asked. “One of the most common uses for silk — due to its expense and rarity — was as shrouds, burial shrouds of royalty.”

Vigor waited, staring at Gray. He slowly understood, picturing a hollow blue brick. Amazement crept into his voice. “You think it might be Kokejin’s burial shroud.”

“Possibly. But if I’m right, then I know what we must search for within that old castle.”

Gray knew, too. “Kokejin’s tomb.”

Seated in the copilot’s seat, Seichan had an expansive view of the island as the seaplane dove toward a sheltered bay. It was not a large island, no more than four miles across. Its center was rocky and hilly, with sparse veins of green. Most of its coastlines were cliffs and isolated jagged bays, home to many smugglers’ coves. But to the north, the higher slopes fell more gently toward the sea. Here, the land turned greener with date palms and tilled fields, nestling a small township of thatched huts.

From the air, evidence of an older, more extensive city could be spotted: massive foundations, the stones quarried from the island’s rock-salt hills; a few crumbled homes, looking more like rubble piles; and a single tall minaret, once used as a lighthouse by the Portuguese.

But none of this was their destination.

The seaplane tipped on a wing and banked over the isthmus that extended north from the old city. Upon the spit of land rested the remains of the old castle. It had once been separated from the ancient city by a wide moat, but it was now silted up, marked only by a sunken line drawn from east to west.

As the plane crossed over the ruins, Seichan studied their target. The massive fort was surrounded by tall seawalls, but the western side had long ago lost its battle with those seas, undermined and toppled by battering waves. The eastern side, sheltered by a gentle bay, had fared better.

The plane angled for a landing in this bay, diving low, then skimming the water. Seichan caught a glimpse of rusty iron cannons on the roof of the fort, and six more on the beach of the bay, now used as mooring ties for boats. In fact, a small tin boat was tied up to one. A small brown figure, naked except for a long pair of shorts, waved an arm at their approach.

Seichan expected that the young man was the guide she had ordered up from the village. With only two hours to spare, they needed someone who knew the castle grounds.

The seaplane coasted down to the water, spraying a fierce wash behind as the flying boat settled to the sheltered waters. Seichan was shoved forward in her seat belt, earning a twinge of complaint from her wounded side. She had checked the injury earlier, in the airport’s bathroom. The bandages were damp with some leakage, but more pink than red.

She’d survive.

The pilot guided his ship around as the tin boat sped at them, bouncing through the plane’s wake. Their guide sat in the rear, a hand on the rudder.

A few moments later, the hatches were opened, and the party climbed from plane to skiff. Their guide ended up being a boy of twelve or thirteen, all rib bones and smiles. And plainly he wanted to practice his English, as fractured as it might be.

“Good chaps, fine lady, welcoming to Hormuz! I am named Fee’az!”

Gray helped Seichan into the boat, cocking one eyebrow. “This is your experienced guide?”

“Unless you’re willing to melt down one of those gold passports, that’s the best money can buy here.”

And she had already spent top dollar to get them here so quickly.

She watched Gray settle to a seat. His eyes were already studying the castle. She noted the worry in the hunch of his shoulders. In profile, his features were hard, all angles, from chin to cheekbones. But he was mortally torn, broken and weakened.

Over his mother and father.

With a slight dismissive shake of her head, Seichan turned away. She could not even remember her parents. Only one memory existed: of a woman being dragged through a door, weeping, reaching for her, then gone. She wasn’t even sure it was her mother.

Fee’az whined up the small outboard and sputtered toward the palm-lined beach and the towering ruins of the castle. Kowalski trailed a hand in the water, yawning. Vigor stared over toward the village. Some celebration was under way, with music wafting over.

Gray glanced back at her. He wore a familiar expression, both eyebrows high, that asked, Are you ready?

She nodded.

As Gray turned back, he shook out of his light jacket. The sunlight blazed down. He wore only a khaki T-shirt. She noted a flash of sunlight at his collar. His right hand absently tucked back the bright bit of silver under his shirt.

A dragon charm.

She had given it to him mostly as a teasing joke from a past cooperation. But Gray had kept it and still wore it. Why? It made her feel inexplicably warm — not so much from affection as a mix of confusion and embarrassment. Did Gray think she had given the charm as some token, some sign of attraction? She should have been amused, but for some reason it just irritated her.

The boat’s bow scraped against the sand, jarring her back.

They’d reached the shore and began unloading.

Seichan tossed Kowalski a satchel that contained additional gear, including a laptop computer, several more flash-bang grenades, and six boxes of ammunition for the four pistols.

Gray held out a hand to help her out of the boat.

She brushed him aside and hopped out.

Fee’az tied up the boat to one of the rusty cannons and waved them toward a square opening in the fort’s walls. Higher up, narrow casements pierced the ramparts, where once Portuguese gunmen had defended the bastion.

The group passed under the wall and into the abandoned stone courtyard. Thorny weeds grew from cracks, a few steps away a large open cistern threatened a nasty fall, and a couple of scraggly date palms sprouted from an old garden patch. Everywhere else, loose sand whispered across the rock with the hissing voices of ghosts.

Fee’az lifted an arm toward the main bulk of the castle. It climbed in six stories to toothed ramparts, where the rusted tips of cannons still protruded.

“I will show you all!” Fee’az declared. “Much to watch!”

He began to set off, but Vigor touched the boy’s shoulder. “Does the castle have a chapel?” he asked.

The boy frowned for a moment, then brightened again with his perpetual smile. “Chapple! You are thirsty.”

Vigor smiled. “No. A church.”

The boy’s brow pinched, but his smile refused to fade. “Ah, you are Christian. That’s okay. All good. Muslims like the Bible. It’s a holy book, too. We have saints, too. Muslim saints. But the Prophet Mohammed is best.” He shrugged sheepishly.

Vigor squeezed his shoulder, recognizing the boy was struggling between being a good tourist guide and being a good Muslim.

“The church?” he asked again.

The boy nodded vigorously. “The room of the crosses.” He led them toward the dark opening, still babbling in a furious stream.

Kowalski shook his head at the boy’s antics and set off after them. “He needs to cut caffeine out of his life.”

Gray smiled, a rarity, sunshine through thunderclouds. “Let’s go,” he whispered to Seichan as he passed. He brushed close. His hand grazed hers.

She almost reflexively grabbed it. Instead, angry at herself, she clenched her fingers. But her reaction wasn’t all fury or frustration.

There was guilt, too.

She hated lying to this man.

“Oh, this is going to be a pain in the ass,” Kowalski said.

Gray did not argue.

The chapel rested on the first floor of the castle, all the way to the rear. After passing through the entrance hall, they had needed flashlights to traverse the low, back passages. It grew quieter the deeper they traveled. The air went still. The only movement was from a few nesting rats, scurrying from the beams of their lights.

The hall had ended at a low door, requiring not just ducking one’s head, but also bowing at the waist. Vigor had been the first to enter the room with their guide. A small gasp escaped him as he straightened inside. Gray had followed next.

He stood now, splashing his beam around the dark chapel.

Cut high into the far wall, a cross-shaped window allowed in some sunlight, but not much. The window was no more than a pair of crossed slits, certainly too narrow to squeeze through, but maybe another place from which to defend the castle.

The window cast a cross of sunlight across a waist-high slab of stone.

The chapel’s altar.

The room was otherwise empty.

But not unadorned.

Across every surface — walls, floor, roof, even the altar — crosses had been carved into the stone. Hundreds, if not thousands of them. They varied from ones no larger than a thumbprint to ornate, life-size giants.

“No wonder they call it the room of crosses,” Vigor said.

“Yeah, real serial-killer chic,” Kowalski commented sourly. “Must be all that island inbreeding.”

Gray studied the expanse of crosses, remembering the faint cross inscribed into the marble tile in Hagia Sophia. He pulled out the silver cross, Friar Agreer’s crucifix. “Now all we have to do is find the one that matches this.”

Vigor stepped over and asked Fee’az to leave them alone here.

He seemed confused until the monsignor pointed to the cross in Gray’s fingers.

“We must pray,” the monsignor explained. “We will come out when we are done.”

The boy quickly stepped away, nodding. He could not dart out quick enough, plainly fearful of being caught while a Christian ceremony was performed. From his speed, he must suspect they’d be sacrificing babies.

Once they were alone, Gray scratched his head, momentarily daunted, too conscious of the press of time. “One of these crosses must be an exact match to Friar Agreer’s crucifix. We must find which one.”

He split the party up.

Four of them, four walls.

And that still left floor and ceiling.

Gray placed the cross on the altar, readily available for each person to grab and compare. He also ripped four pages out of his notebook and traced the cross’s shape, crib sheets for each.

As they all searched, Gray noted the shift of the sunlight across the altar, creeping steadily as the sun set, as time escaped him. He finished his wall. Nothing. Sweat poured; his clothes clung to his skin. He started on the floor. The others, one at a time, joined him. Seichan worked on the altar.

The most important cross — the one formed of sunshine — continued to inch inexorably across the room.

“Not on the floor either,” Vigor said, red-faced, straightening from his knees. He stood, one hand supporting his lower back.

Behind the altar, Seichan shook her head.

No luck either.

Gray stared up.

The roof was low, but not low enough to touch. It would require much lifting to test every cross up there that might be the right size.

“Maybe I was wrong,” Vigor said. “Maybe Kokejin’s tomb is somewhere else in the castle. All these crosses may be a false lead.”

Gray shook his head. No. They had lost a full hour already. They didn’t have time to search every nook and cranny of the castle by hand. They had committed to the chapel. There was no turning back, no second-guessing.

“Kokejin’s tomb must be here,” Gray insisted.

Vigor sighed. “Then that leaves us the ceiling.”

Gray assigned Kowalski to help boost the monsignor up. He stepped over to Seichan’s side.

“Man, I got the raw end of this deal,” Kowalski griped.

Ignoring him, Vigor pointed to the walls. “We’ll start along the outer edges. You two do the middle.”

Seichan climbed onto the altar. “I can reach the ones above here by myself.”

As she stood, a cross of sunlight lit her back. She had stripped out of her vest and only wore a black T-shirt. Gray noted her curves as she reached up, the stretch of cotton over breast. Despite all his worries, a part of him was still male enough to appreciate it…yet he was still man enough to feel guilty about it.

Now wasn’t the time…

“I think I see a possibility…” Seichan mumbled, extending to her toes, stretching higher.

Then she winced and came down on her heels. Her hand cupped her left side. She had strained her wound.

Gray climbed up next to her. “Let me help you.”

He offered her a leg up, lacing his hands together into a stirrup.

She picked up the silver crucifix, then stepped into his hands.

As he straightened and lifted her, she balanced one hand atop his head and reached the crucifix toward the ceiling. Her left buttock was pressed against his cheek.

Oh, yeah, he was going to hell.

“I think…I think…” Seichan whispered. “It fits! This mark’s carved deep, and the crucifix snugs right into it. A perfect match!”

Gray craned up, but all he could see were the underside of her breasts.

“Can you tell what Christ is staring at?” he asked, remembering Hagia Sophia.

“Down at the altar,” she answered, but she seemed distracted. “The crucifix is seated in a circular block of stone. When I pushed the crucifix in there, I thought I felt something click. And the stone almost seems loose. With the crucifix in place, I think I can turn it. Maybe loosen it free.”

“I don’t think you should—”

He heard a scrape of stone. A loud clank sounded, but it came not from above. Gray stared down between his toes.

The altar dropped from under his feet, falling straight through the floor, taking Gray with it.

Seichan tumbled into his arms, hugging tight to his neck.

The stone slab hit the ground with a jarring impact, dropping Gray to one knee. Dust flumed up. One of the floor bricks broke away, smashed into the altar, and bounced away into the darkness that lay ahead.

Gray stared up. Though it had scared the breath out of him, they had fallen only four feet. Vigor and Kowalski stared down at them.

“I think you found something, Indiana,” Kowalski said with a smirk. He passed over a flashlight.

Gray rolled his eyes, but he accepted the flashlight. Seichan climbed off him, dusting herself off. Crouching, Gray pointed his light into the chamber revealed under the chapel. A dark archway beckoned.

He slid off the altar stone to the floor, Seichan at his shoulder.

Vigor and Kowalski climbed down to follow.

Two crossed arches formed the roof of a small chamber, half the size of the upper chapel. Lit by his flashlight, a low niche was cut into the back wall, framed in another archway.

“A loculi,” Vigor said. “A tomb.”

Within the niche, a body lay stretched across the bare stone, covered in folds of white cloth.

“Kokejin’s tomb,” Vigor said. “We found it.”

Despite the excitement, they approached solemnly. Gray and Vigor stepped up. They needed to be sure. Vigor blessed their trespass with the sign of the cross and a mumbled prayer.

The monsignor reached a hand to the burial shroud.

“If something moves,” Kowalski whispered, dead serious, “I’m out of here. Just so you know.”

Vigor ignored him and reverently lifted away a fold of cloth from one end. “Silk,” he whispered.

Dust wafted as he pulled it back.

The dome of a skull was revealed. Resting atop it shone a gold headpiece, rubies and sapphires reflected the light. Diamonds glistened.

“The princess’s headpiece,” Vigor said in a hushed voice.

Gray remembered Vigor’s story, how Marco had the headpiece with him at his deathbed.

Vigor’s hand trembled. “Marco must have willed that it be returned. Possibly even arranged to have her body removed and secured in secret, before she finally came to her final rest here.”

Gray reached out and covered Vigor’s hand with his own. “The third paitzu…the third key.”

They were short on time.

Gray drew the silk shroud away from the rest of the bones.

Vigor gasped and fell back a step.

Even Gray froze, stunned.

It was not just one body beneath all the silk trapping.

Two skeletons lay within the tomb, entwined in each other’s arms.

Gray recalled Vigor’s story of the Church of San Lorenzo, how Marco Polo was interred there in 1324, but a later renovation revealed the body to be gone.

“We haven’t just found Kokejin’s tomb,” Vigor said.

Gray nodded. “We found Marco Polo’s tomb, too.”

He stared down at the entwined pair.

What the two couldn’t have in life, they had finally achieved in death.

To be together.

Forever.

Gray wondered if he’d ever find a love that great. It reminded him of his parents, together through so much hardship, struggling through trials of debilitation and now dementia…yet they never gave up on each other.

Someone had to save them.

Painter wished he could be on-site, but it would only delay the response team. From Sigma’s com-center, he watched the live video feed. It was broadcast from a helmet camera of one of the strike team.

Ten minutes ago they’d had their first real break.

All morning Painter had busted balls to trace the international phone lugs from Monsignor Verona’s cell phone back to U.S. shores. Gray had mentioned that Amen Nasser had called Vigor’s phone. To trace that call, Painter had to rattle powers from the Vatican’s Curia to Homeland Security’s director of operations. At least with Seichan in tow, he had been able to play the terrorist card. It had opened doors normally closed.

Still, it took longer than he’d liked, but Painter finally knew from where the call had originated. A strike team waited on his word to begin the assault.

He leaned to the microphone. “Go.”

Van doors slid open. The camera feed jittered and jumped. The team closed in from multiple directions, front and rear, running low, assault rifles in hand.

The strike team hit the building like a storm.

A battering ram smashed the front door open in one swing.

The feed went dark as his cameraman followed the others into the building. The team fanned out.

Painter waited.

Unable to sit any longer, he stood up, leaning his fists on the communication array. Technicians crowded either side, viewing other monitors as satellite feed streamed in from Indonesia. A major storm with hurricane-strength winds blanketed most of their region, hampering the search for the hijacked Mistress of the Seas. The storm also grounded a good number of the search planes out of Australia and Indonesia.

The lack of progress had boiled up Painter’s frustration. His fear for Lisa, for Monk, had grown close to crippling.

Then the hit on the phone trace.

He needed a win.

At least here.

Within his earpiece, he heard the chatter of the strike team, crisscrossing reports and call-outs. Finally, one clear voice rang through, coming from the cameraman. He had stopped inside what looked like a meat locker. Hooks hung from the roof.

“Director Crowe, we’ve completed the sweep of the butcher shop. We’re negative on the targets. The place is deserted.”

The video jittered as the cameraman bent down — then straightened, lifting his fingers into view.

They were damp.

“Sir, we’ve got blood.”

Oh, no…

One of the technicians glanced in his direction, saw something he didn’t like in Painter’s expression, and quickly turned back around.

A voice cut through his despair, coming from the door.

“Director Crowe…”

A woman stood in the doorway, dressed in navy blues. Her auburn hair was tied away from her face, shining with fear and worry. He understood the haunted look in her eyes.

“Kat…” he said, straightening. It was Monk’s wife.

“My aunt is watching Penelope. I couldn’t just sit at home any longer.”

He understood and lifted an arm. “We could use your help.”

She sighed and nodded.

It was all they could do.

Keep moving, keep fighting.

In any way they could.

Vigor stared down at the entwined bodies.

Marco and Kokejin.

The discovery still kept him frozen in front of the slab. Others were not as moved. Seichan pushed between Gray and Vigor.

She pointed an arm. “The third gold passport.”

Gray pulled the burial shroud fully aside. Nestled between the bodies, covered by the two skeletal hands, a glint of gold shone past the bones.

It was the third paitzu.

And resting beside it was a familiar length of bronze tube.

The third and final scroll.

With a reverential gentleness, Gray removed the items. He slipped the headpiece off the skull, too. “It might bear a clue,” he justified.

Vigor didn’t argue. With the burial chamber opened, it would be quickly stolen if left unattended.

They all climbed back up into the chapel.

Once there, they gathered in a corner of the room.

Gray turned over the golden passport to reveal a third angelic glyph.

“We have them all,” Seichan said.

“But not the entire story,” Gray said. He pulled out his notebook and nodded to Vigor. “Let’s hear it.”

Vigor needed no further prompting. He nicked open the bronze tube and extracted the scroll. “Silk again,” he commented, and began unwrapping it with care.

The last piece of the story was longer, stretching a quarter of the way across the chapel floor. Vigor translated Marco’s Italian dialect. The harrowing tale continued with the appearance of the glowing angelic figures, coming upon Marco’s party trapped inside a tower room.

Vigor read the story aloud:

“Dear God,” Vigor muttered.

He slowly read the rest.

Upon escaping the city, Marco Polo related how a plague struck his fleet, stranding the ships and crew at a remote island. Only those who consumed the medicine offered by these glowing men remained untouched. Marco left the City of the Dead with enough additional medicine to treat his father and uncle, along with Kokejin and two of her maids. They ended up burning the ships and bodies of the diseased, many of them still alive.

Vigor read the final section.

As Gray listened to the story and its cryptic ending, he worked on the puzzle in the notebook. It helped him concentrate to listen to Vigor while contemplating the mystery in hand. It distracted him from the terror clutching his own heart.

And as the story unfolded, he began to understand.

He’d been a fool.

He studied his notebook, blurring his eyes, seeing the answer hidden in the code. And with the three keys, perhaps a way to read it.

He flipped through the pages, looking for the right one. When he found it, he leaned closer, tracing with a finger. Could this be right? He needed to investigate it more.

He checked his watch.

With less than a half hour left, do I have enough time?

Before he could find out, a rattle of automatic fire echoed to them, sounding like firecrackers. Pop, pop, pop, pop…

Gray leaped up.

God, no…had Nasser found them?

He crossed to the chapel opening and stared out into the dark halls.

“Get everything together,” he urged without turning. “Now!”

Backlit by the filtering sunlight, Gray made out the slim shape of a figure running toward him. Bare feet slapped stone — then a voice called out, balanced between urgency and stealth.

“Hurry!”

It was Fee’az.

The boy did not slow and ran straight at them.

Farther out, coming from the direction of the castle courtyard, angry shouts in Farsi echoed.

Gray caught the thin boy’s shoulder as he flew up to them, breathless.

“Hurry. Smugglers.”

Fee’az did not wait and rebounded back into the outer hall and headed in the opposite direction, paralleling the rear of the castle.

Gray turned to the others. “Grab what you have…leave the rest!”

They set off after Fee’az.

The boy waited halfway down the hall, then fled onward.

Fee’az continued a running commentary. Apparently even the threat of smugglers did not stifle his tongue. “You take so long. With your prayers. I sleep. Under palms.” He waved back in the general direction of the courtyard. “They not see me. Almost step on me. I wake and run. They shoot. Bang, bang. But I am fast on the legs.”

Proving it, he flew through the back rooms and halls.

Behind them, shouts changed in timbre, indicating the raiding party had entered the castle.

Fee’az led them to crude stairs leading down. “This way.”

They reached a narrow, low tunnel, barely taller than a crawlway. It shot off to the south. Fee’az scurried ahead.

After fifty steps, it ended at an old rusted iron grate. The bars had long been sawed away, leaving only stumps. They pushed through and out into the castle’s silted-up moat. Crumbled stone walls marked the boundary.

Gray glanced behind him. The crawlway must have been the castle’s old sewer line.

Waving them to stay low, Fee’az led them along the moat, toward the eastern bay. Shouts still echoed from the castle. The smugglers had not yet realized the mice had fled.

Reaching the water, Gray saw the plane still waited, unmolested.

Fee’az explained, “Dirty smugglers. Never steal plane. They pinch little.” He demonstrated by holding his fingers apart, almost touching, then shrugged. “Sometime kill. Throw bodies to sharks. But never take something so big. Government will send bigger planes, bigger guns.”

So not worth the risk.

Still, erring on the side of caution, they used oars to silently paddle the boy’s boat out to the waiting seaplane. Fee’az waved them on board.

“Come again! Come again!” he said, formally shaking each hand.

Gray felt obligated to give him some bonus for pulling their asses out of the fire. He reached to his pack, fished inside, and handed him the princess’s golden headpiece.

The boy’s eyes widened, holding the treasure with both hands — then pushed it back toward Gray. “I can no take.”

Gray folded his fingers over it. “It will cost you only a promise.”

Fee’az glanced up to him.

“There are two bodies, two skeletons, in the castle. Under the room of crosses.” He pointed to the castle, then out to the distant hills. “Take them away, dig a deep hole, and bury them. Together.”

He smiled, unsure if Gray was joking.

“Will you promise?”

He nodded his head. “I will get my brothers and uncles to help.”

Gray pushed the golden headpiece toward him. “It is yours.”

“Thank you, sir.” He shook Gray’s hand and said with all the solemnity of a blessing, “Come again.”

Gray climbed into the plane.

Minutes later they were airborne, shooting up out of the bay and headed back toward the international airport.

Gray returned to the rear seat, joining Vigor.

“You gave the boy the princess’s headpiece?” the monsignor said, staring down at the boy’s retreating skiff.

“To bury Marco and Kokejin.”

Vigor turned to face him. “But such a discovery. History—”

“Marco has done enough for history. It was his last wish to be buried in peace with the woman he loved. I think we owe him that much. And besides, we don’t need the headpiece.”

Vigor stared at Gray, one eye narrowed, plainly sizing him up, judging his generosity. “But you thought the headpiece might hold a clue. That’s why you took it.” The monsignor’s eyes widened and his voice raised. “Dear Lord, Gray, you actually solved the angelic code.”

Gray pulled his notebook out. “Not quite. Almost.”

“How?”

Seichan overheard their discussion and came back to join them, standing between the seats. Kowalski twisted around, peering over the seat back.

Gray answered the monsignor. “I solved it by throwing out all our old suppositions. We kept looking for a letter-substitution code.”

“Like the inscription in the Vatican spelling out HAGIA.”

“I think that was done to purposefully mislead. The big mystery on the obelisk is not a letter-substitution puzzle.”

“Show us,” Seichan said.

“In a moment.” Gray checked his watch. Eight minutes left. “I still have part of the puzzle to figure out. The three keys. Keys organized in a certain order.”

He opened his notebook and tapped the three angelic symbols.

Gray continued, “With the obelisk’s code always in plain sight, the keys only served one purpose. To reveal the correct way to read the code. The obelisk has four sides. But on which side do you start? In which direction do you read it?”

Gray flipped his notebook open and found the original page of script supplied by Seichan. “For the gold-inscribed symbols to be so important, they must be written somewhere on the obelisk. And so they are.”

Gray circled them.

“This sequence only appears once. It’s unique. Notice how it wraps from one of the obelisk’s surfaces to the next. It’s delineating where to begin reading and in which direction.”

He added an arrow.

“So you must reorder the sequence to match the keys.” He flipped the notebook pages, searching through the eight variations that he and Vigor had mapped out earlier. He found the right one and circled the key symbols. “This is the proper way the map must be laid out to be read correctly.”

Seichan leaned closer. “What map are you talking about?”

“This is what I noticed back at the chapel,” he said. “Watch.”

He took a pencil and began poking holes through the page and marking the next blank page.

“What are you doing?” Vigor asked.

Gray explained, “Notice how some of the diacritical marks — those small circles in the angelic script — are darkened and others are not. We know from the second key how that symbol’s black diacritical mark ended up being a marker for the Portuguese castle. So the blackened circles on the obelisk’s code must be markers, too. But markers to what? If you poke out each dark circle onto a fresh page, stripping all else away, you get this.”

“Well, that sure helped,” Kowalski said sarcastically.

Gray rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin, concentrating. “Something’s here. I can sense it.”

“Maybe you’re supposed to connect the dots,” Kowalski said with no less sarcasm. “Maybe it’ll form a big flashing arrow spelling out go the fuck here.”

Seichan frowned. “And maybe it’s time for you to shut the hell up.”

Gray did not need their bickering. Not now. Kowalski was fine as a getaway driver, good in a firefight, but Gray needed sage advice, not kindergarten suggestions, like connect the dots.

Then he saw it.

“Oh my God!” Gray sat up, fumbled his pencil, and grasped it more firmly. “Kowalski is right!”

“I am?”

“He is…?” Seichan responded.

Gray turned to Vigor, clutching his forearm. “The first clue! In the Tower of Winds.”

Vigor frowned — then his eyes widened. “Which holds the Vatican’s astronomical observatory…where Galileo proved the earth moved around the sun!” Vigor tapped the sheet. “These are stars!”

Gray took his pencil. He had been staring hard at the sheet and recognized a familiar pattern. “This is a constellation.” He drew it in.

Vigor recognized it, too. “That’s the constellation for Draco, the dragon.”

Seichan cocked her head as she stared down. “Are you saying it’s a navigational star map?”

“It looks that way.” Gray scratched his head with his pencil’s eraser. “But how does one constellation tell us where to go?”

No one answered.

“It can’t,” he finally conceded.

Gray’s heart pounded in his throat. They were running out of time. Had he just taken them down the wrong path?

Vigor sat back. “Wait,” he mumbled. “Remember Marco’s story. The last stanza. Marco said he drew a map of the city, not a map to the city.”

“And?” Gray asked.

Vigor took the paper, spun it around. “This can’t be stars. It has to be the layout of the City of the Dead. That’s what Marco’s text stated. Possibly the Vatican made the same mistake we just did. They misinterpreted Marco’s map in the same manner. They also thought it was a navigational star map.”

Gray shook his head. “That’s a rather strange coincidence that a city should be laid out in the exact pattern of the Draco constellation. If I’m not mistaken, even the stars outside the dragon line mark the placement of real stars.”

Vigor nodded. “But remember, from my study of ancient civilizations…from the Egyptians through Mesoamerica, many civilizations built their monuments and cities patterned after the stars, made to mimic them.”

Gray remembered a similar lesson. “Like the three Egyptian pyramids are supposed to represent the stars of Orion’s belt.”

“Exactly! Somewhere in Southeast Asia is a city patterned after the Draco constellation.”

Seichan suddenly swung around. “Choi mai!” she swore under her breath. “I remember something…something I heard about…some ruins in Cambodia. My family has roots in the region. Vietnam and Cambodia.”

Seichan rushed to her pack, pawed through it, and pulled out her laptop. “There’s an encyclopedia program on here.”

Seichan squatted down between the knees of Vigor and Gray. She called up the program and typed rapidly. She double-clicked on an icon and a digital map filled the screen.

“This is the temple complex of Angkor, built by the Khmer people of Cambodia in the ninth century.”

“Notice the layout of the temples,” Seichan said, “where each one lies. I had heard stories of how these ruins were supposedly laid out in a starlike grid.”

With his finger Gray drew a line connecting the temples in a pattern and tapped the remaining temples. He held up the first star map and placed it next to the open laptop.

“They’re an exact match,” Vigor said, awed. “Marco’s City of the Dead. It’s the ancient city of Angkor Wat.”

Gray leaned down and hugged Seichan’s shoulders. She tensed, but didn’t pull away. Gray owed everyone a debt of gratitude, even Kowalski, whose simplistic overview had broken the way to the solution.

Gray checked his watch.

Not a minute to spare.

He held out his hand toward Vigor. “Your phone. It’s time to make a deal.”

Vigor passed him the cell phone and battery.

Gray snapped the battery in place, praying for some measure of good fortune. He dialed Nasser’s number, supplied by Seichan. Vigor reached over and gripped Gray’s hand, offering support.

The phone rang once and was picked up.

“Commander Pierce,” a cold and furious voice answered.

Gray took a steadying breath, struggling not to lash out. He needed to be deliberate and firm.

“My plane is about to land,” Nasser continued, not even waiting for acknowledgment. “For your treachery, I will allow you to decide which of your parents will die first, your mother or your father. I will make you listen to their screams. And that parent, I promise, will be the luckier of the two.”

Despite the threat Gray took some solace. If Nasser wasn’t lying, both of his parents were still alive.

Taking comfort in that, Gray kept his voice even, his jaw muscles aching with the restraint. “I will offer you a trade for their lives.”

“There is nothing you can offer,” Nasser barked back.

“Even if I told you that I’d solved the obelisk’s angelic code?”

Dead air answered him.

Gray continued. “Nasser, I know where Marco’s City of the Dead lies.” Fearing even this might not be enough to sway the bastard, Gray spoke the next words slowly, so there was no misunderstanding. “And I know how to cure the Judas Strain.”

Vigor turned to him, startled.

Silence continued on the phone.

Gray waited. He stared at the digital map of Angkor Wat on the laptop. He sensed that the two arms of the Guild operation — the one following the scientific trail, the other following the historical — were about to slam together.

But who would be crushed between them?

Nasser finally answered, his voice a trembling rage.

“What do you want?”