James Rollins - Map of Bones

With a shake of his head, he moved on. He had a crime to investigate.

“What I really wanted to show you is back here.”

He led her to the larger pens at the stern end of the hold. One pen held a nursing lamb and its mother. But rather than curly wool, the animals’ coats hung straight to the ground, more like a yak’s pelt than a sheep’s. But that’s not what Jack wanted to show Lorna.

He tried to urge her on, but she paused at the next cage. The occupant of that pen lay stiffly on its side atop the hay floor, legs straight out, eyes wide and fixed, dead. It looked like a miniature pony, but the creature was no larger than a cocker spaniel.

“Look at its hooves,” Lorna said. “They’re cloven. Four toes in front, three in back. The earliest ancestor of the modern horse— Hyracotherium —was only the size of a fox and had the same digital division.”

She crouched to examine the dead body. The hoof of one toe had been torn away. Its head bore signs of fresh concussions, as if it had panicked and thrashed against the bars before it died.

“Looks like something scared it to death,” she assessed.

“I can guess what that might have been.” Jack headed toward the very back of the hold. “This way.”

She followed. Irritation entered her voice, along with a thread of deeper anger. “What were these people doing? For that matter, how did they do it?”

“That’s what I hoped you could answer. But we have a bigger and more immediate problem.” They reached the last pen. It was large and heavily barred. Hay covered the floor, but no animal was in sight. “We found the door dented and broken open when we came down here.”

“Something escaped?” Lorna glanced from the empty pen back toward the passageway and stairs, clearly recalling the blood trail.

“We need you to tell us what it was,” he said.

She frowned at him. “How?”

He pointed as something buried beneath the hay shifted. A weak mewling followed.

Lorna glanced to him, her face shining with curiosity. He pulled the door and held it open for her to enter.

“Be careful,” he warned.

Thanks for following me on this latest journey. As before, I wanted to take this last moment to separate fact from fiction. I also hope this spurs some further investigation by readers. To aid in this, I’ve listed some of the books below that inspired this storyline.

So let’s start at the beginning. The Prologue. The Magi relics are indeed stored in a golden sarcophagus at the Cologne Cathedral, and the caravan that transported the bones from Milan to Cologne was indeed ambushed in the twelfth century.

Moving on to the first chapter, Super Black is a real compound developed at the National Physical Laboratory in Britain. The Eight Ball is a real structure at Fort Detrick (sorry for knocking it over), and liquid body armor is, amazingly enough, real , developed by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

I won’t go into such specific detail with the rest of the novel. I just wanted to use the above examples to demonstrate how what might seem wild in this novel may have some basis in fact. For those interested in more specifics, please check out my website (jamesrollins.com).

The Imperial Dragon Court is an actual European organization that traces its roots back to the Middle Ages. It is a ceremonial and benevolent society of aristocrats of varying influence. The bloody subsect described in this book is of my own imagining and not meant to disparage anyone currently in the Court.

As to the heart of this novel, it would take volumes to discuss the truth behind both m-state metals and the long trail they trace throughout history. Luckily, that volume has already been written, following in great detail the path from the Egyptians to modern times, including the strange effects of Meissner fields, superconductivity, and magnetism. I encourage anyone with even a slight interest in this topic to pick up Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark by Sir Laurence Gardner. It was my own personal bible for this novel.

Speaking of bibles, if you were wondering about the conflict in the early Christian church between the followers of the apostles John and Thomas, a pair of great books on this topic were written by National Book Award — winning author Elaine Pagels: Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas and The Gnostic Gospels .

For those interested in more details of the Magi and a possible brotherhood that still exists today, I recommend Magi: the Quest for a Secret Tradition by Adrian Gilbert.

I also recommend and am indebted to Robert J. Hutchinson’s When in Rome, a Journal of Life in Vatican City . It is a great and entertaining source of insight into the Vatican and its history.

Finally, I hope my own novel entertains but also raises some questions in the readers. In that vein, I’ll end this discussion of fact and fiction by endorsing the primary adage of Gnostic tradition: to seek the truth…always and in all ways. It seems a fitting finish to this novel. So to quote Matthew 7:7,

“Seek, and you shall find.”

IN A BOOK of this scope, I needed a legion of supporters: friends, family, critics, librarians, curators, travel agents, dishwashers, and pet-sitters. First, thanks to Carolyn McCray, who red-inked every page before anybody else, and Steve Prey, for his thoughts and insights that evolved into the artwork within these pages. Then, of course, I’m honored to acknowledge my posse of friends who meet every other week at Coco’s Restaurant: Judy Prey, Chris Crowe, Michael Gallowglas, David Murray, Dennis Grayson, Dave Meek, Royale Adams, Jane O’Riva, Dan Needles, Zach Watkins, and Caroline Williams. And for all help with languages, my heartfelt appreciation to my friend from the Great White North, Diane Daigle. A special thanks to David Sylvian for his boundless energy, support, and enthusiasm and to Susan Tunis for her fact-checking of all manner and substance. For the inspiration for this story, I must credit the books by Sir Laurence Gardner and the pioneering research of David Hudson. Finally, the four people whom I respect for their friendship as much as their counsel: my editor, Lyssa Keusch, and her colleague May Chen, and my agents Russ Galen and Danny Baror. And as always, I must stress any and all errors of fact or detail fall squarely on my own shoulders.

James Rollins is the bestselling author of six previous novels: Subterranean, Excavation, Deep Fathom, Amazonia, Ice Hunt, and Sandstorm . He has a doctorate in veterinary medicine and his own practice in Sacramento, California. An amateur spelunker and a certified scuba enthusiast, he can often be found either underground or underwater.

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Sandstorm

Ice Hunt

Amazonia

Deep Fathom

Excavation

Subterranean

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