James Rollins - Map of Bones

But there was no time for debate.

The blast punched a fist-sized hole through the door, taking the entire handle and lock with it. Still running, Monk hit the door. It banged open under his shoulder. He fell inside, followed by Kat and the monsignor. Kat turned, limping, and shoved the door closed.

“No,” the priest said.

Monk now understood the reason for his protest.

The vaulted room was the size of a single-car garage. He stared at the glass cases crowded with old robes and insignia, bits of sculpture. Gold shone from some of the cases.

It was the cathedral’s Treasure Chamber.

There was no exit.

Trapped.

Kat took up position, Glock in hand, and peered out the blasted hole. “Here they come.”

RACHEL REACHED the end of the pew, out of breath, heart thundering in her ears. Shots continued to pound their position, coming from all sides, gouging out chunks of wood from the flanking pews.

The grenade blast still echoed in her head, but her hearing was returning. Surely the priests and staff in the rectory had heard the explosion and had called the police.

The gunfire relented momentarily as the robed assailants repositioned themselves, closing up the center aisle.

“Make for that wall,” Gray urged. “Behind the pillars. I’ll cover you.”

Rachel spotted the nest of pylons that supported the vaulted roof. It offered better shelter than being pinned between a row of seats. She glanced back to the American.

“On my signal,” he said, crouching down. Their eyes met. She saw a thread of healthy fear, but also a determined concentration. He nodded to her, shifted around, readied himself, then shouted, “Go!”

Rachel dove out the end of the pew as gunfire erupted behind her, louder than their assailants’. The commander’s guns had no silencers.

She hit the marble floor and rolled behind the trio of pillars. She gained her feet immediately, back to the giant pillar. Carefully peeking around the curve, she spotted Commander Pierce backpedaling toward her, both pistols blazing.

A robed man down the end of the same pew fell backward, punched by the impacts. Another down the center aisle cried out and grabbed his neck as a spat of red arced out. The others had ducked from the American’s attack. Across the church, Rachel spotted five or six men converging on the door to the cathedral’s Treasure Chamber, firing almost nonstop.

As Commander Pierce reached her position, panting, Rachel swung to check the other side of her pillar, peering along the wall. So far no one had circled this way yet. But she had to assume they would soon.

“What now?” she asked, removing her pistol from a shoulder holster, the Beretta given to her by the Carabinieri driver back in Rome.

“This line of columns parallels the wall. We stick to cover. Shoot anything that moves.”

“And our goal?”

“To get the hell out of this death trap.”

Rachel frowned. What about the others?

The American must have noted her worry. “We’ll head for the streets. Draw off as many of the bastards as we can.”

She nodded. They would play decoy. “Let’s go.”

The pillars along the south wall were spaced only two meters apart. They proceeded briskly, staying low, using the rows of neighboring pews out in the nave as additional cover. Commander Pierce fired high, while Rachel discouraged any assailants from entering the alleyway between the wall and the pillars, picking off any shadows that moved.

The ploy worked. More gunfire concentrated on their position. But it also slowed them down, putting them at risk of a second grenade attack. They had only made it halfway down the nave, and it became impossible to leap from pillar to pillar.

The American took a blow to the back, splaying him out on the ground. Rachel gasped. But he pushed back up.

Rachel shifted down the alley, sticking close to the wall, pointing her gun back and forth. With her concentration fixed outward, she made the same mistake as the assailants had the prior night.

The door to the confessional swung open behind her. Before she could move, an arm lashed out and wrapped around her neck. Her weapon was knocked from her fingers. The cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against her neck.

“Don’t move,” a deep bass voice ordered as the commander swung around. The attacker’s arm felt like a tree trunk, strangling her breathing. He was tall, a giant of a man, practically hauling her to her toes. “Drop your weapons.”

The gunfire died out. It was clear now why a second grenade hadn’t been lobbed toward them. While the two of them thought they were escaping, the gunmen had been merely driving them into this trap.

“I’d do as he says,” a new voice said silkily, coming from the penitent’s booth neighboring the priest’s confessional. The door opened and a second figure stepped out, dressed in black leather.

It was no monk, but a woman. Slender, Eurasian.

She lifted her pistol, a black Sig Sauer. She pointed it at Gray’s face. “ Déjà vu , Commander Pierce?”

THE DOOR was a problem. With the lock blown off, every strike of a bullet threatened to pop the door open. And they dared not keep it shouldered closed. Most of the rounds were stopped by the wood planks, but a few still found weak spots and cracked through, making Swiss cheese out of the door.

Monk kept one boot against the frame, anchoring the door with his heel, while keeping his body off to the side. Bullets pounded against the door, the impacts rattling up to his knee.

“Hurry it up back there,” he urged.

He pointed his shotgun out the hole in the door and fired blindly. The smoking shell casing ejected out of the weapon’s chamber, hit one of the long glass treasure cases, and bounced off of it. Beyond the door, the spray of the Scattergun kept the assailants wary, firing from a distance. It seemed the attackers knew their prey was trapped.

So what were they waiting for?

Monk expected a grenade to be lobbed against the door at any moment. He prayed the insulation of the stone wall would keep him alive. But what then? With the door blown away, they had no chance at all in here.

And rescue was unlikely. Monk had heard the chatter of Gray’s weapon echo across the church. It sounded like he was retreating toward the main doors. Monk knew that the commander was helping to draw the fire off their location. It was the only reason they were still alive.

But now Gray’s weapon had gone silent.

They were on their own.

A fresh barrage struck the door, rattling the frame, jarring his anchored leg. His thigh burned from the effort and had begun to tremble. “Guys, now or never!”

A rattle of keys drew his eye. Monsignor Verona had been struggling with a key ring, given to him by the cathedral’s caretaker. He fought to get the third bulletproof case open. Finally, with a cry of relief, he found the right key, and the front of the case swung open like a gate.

Kat reached over his shoulder and grabbed a long sword from the case. A fifteenth-century decorative weapon with a gold and jeweled hilt. But the blade, three feet long, was polished steel. She yanked it free and hauled it across the chamber. She kept out of the direct line of fire and stabbed the sword between the door and its frame, jamming and securing the door.

Monk pulled back his leg, rubbing his sore knee. “ ’Bout time.” He again shoved his shotgun through the hole in the door and fired — more in irritation than any hope of hitting anyone.

With the scatter of shot driving the attackers back a step, Monk risked a fast glance out. One of the assailants lay sprawled on his back, head half gone, blood pooled. One of his blind shots had found a target.