James Rollins - Map of Bones

The bones had been removed, just as the monsignor had described. The Vatican was taking no chances. And neither would he.

“The rectory is located off the church’s left side,” Vigor said, a bit too loudly. “That’s where the offices and apartments are. It’s connected through the sacristy.” He pointed across the church.

As if responding to his signal, a door smacked open across the nave. Gray dropped to a knee. Monk yanked the monsignor behind a pillar, swinging up his shotgun.

A single figure strode out, oblivious of the intruders.

It was a young man dressed in black with a clerical collar.

A priest.

He was alone. He crossed and began lighting a set of candles on the far side of the altar.

Gray waited until the man was only two yards away. Still, no others appeared. Slowly he gained his feet, coming into view.

The priest froze when he spotted Gray, his arm half-raised in lighting another candle. His expression turned to shock when he spotted the pistol in Gray’s hand. “Chi sei?”

Still, Gray hesitated.

Vigor stepped out of hiding. “Padre…”

The priest jumped, and his eyes flicked to the monsignor. He immediately noted the matching collar; confusion surpassed fear.

“I am Monsignor Verona,” Vigor introduced, stepping forward. “Do not be afraid.”

“Monsignor Verona?” Worry etched the man’s features. He backed a step.

“What’s wrong?” Gray asked in Italian.

The priest shook his head. “You can’t be Monsignor Verona.”

Vigor stepped forward and showed him his Vatican ID.

The man glanced from it back to Vigor.

“But a…a man came here early this morning, just after dawn. A tall man. Very tall. With identification as Monsignor Verona. He bore papers with proper seals from the Vatican. To take the bones.”

Gray exchanged a look with the monsignor. They had already been outmaneuvered. Instead of brute force, the Dragon Court had slipped in more slyly this time. By necessity. Because of the increased security. With the real Monsignor Verona believed dead, the Court had assumed his role. Like everything else, they must have known about Vigor’s side mission here to collect the relics. They had used the intelligence to slip the last bones through the intensified security here.

Gray shook his head. They continued to be a step behind.

“Damn it,” Monk said.

The priest frowned at him. Clearly he understood enough English to find affront at the man’s language in a house of God.

“Scusi,” Monk responded.

Gray understood Monk’s frustration, doubly so as mission leader. He bit back his own curse. They had moved too slowly, played too cautiously.

His radio buzzed.

Kat came on the line. She must have overheard enough of the conversation. “Is it all clear, Commander?”

“Clear…and too late,” he answered back sourly.

Kat and Rachel joined them. Vigor introduced the others.

“So the bones are gone,” Rachel said.

The priest nodded. “Monsignor Verona, if you’d like to see the paperwork, we have it in the safe in the sacristy. Maybe that would help.”

“We could check it for fingerprints,” Rachel said tiredly, the exhaustion finally hitting her. “They may have been careless. Not expecting we’d be on their heels. It might flush out whoever betrayed us in the Vatican. It could be our only new lead.”

Gray nodded. “Bag it up. We’ll see what we can find here.”

Rachel and Monsignor Verona headed across the nave.

Gray turned away and strode over to the sarcophagus.

“Any ideas?” Monk asked.

“We still have the gray powder we collected from the golden reliquary,” he said. “We’ll regroup in the Vatican, alert everyone of what’s happened, and test the powder more thoroughly.”

As the sacristy door closed, Gray knelt down by the tiny window again, wondering if praying would help. “We should vacuum out the interior,” he said, struggling to remain clinical. “See if we can confirm the presence of the amalgam powder here, too.”

He leaned closely, cocking his head, not sure what he was looking for. But he found it anyway. A mark on the silk-lined roof of the reliquary chamber. A red seal pressed into the white silk. A tiny curled dragon. The ink looked fresh…too fresh.

But it was not ink….

Blood.

A warning left behind by the Dragon Lady.

Gray straightened, suddenly knowing the truth.

ONCE INSIDE, the priest closed the door to the sacristy. It was the chamber where the clergy and altar boys robed themselves prior to Mass.

Rachel heard the lock click behind her.

She half turned and found a pistol leveled at her chest. Held in the hand of the priest. His eyes had gone as cold and hard as polished marble.

“Don’t move,” he said firmly.

Rachel backed a step. Vigor slowly raised his hands.

To either side were closets hung with clerical garments and vestments, used daily by the priests to say Mass. A table held a row of silver chalices, haphazardly arranged for the same. A large gilded silver crucifix, mounted on a wrought-iron pole, leaned against one corner, meant to lead a processional.

The door on the opposite end of the sacristy opened.

A familiar bull of a man entered, filling the doorway. It was the man who attacked her in Cologne. He carried a long knife in one hand, the blade wet and bloody. He stepped into the room and used a blessed stole hanging in a closet to wipe it clean.

Rachel felt Vigor wince next to her.

The blood. The missing priests. Oh God…

The tall man no longer wore a monk’s garb, but ordinary street clothes, charcoal khakis and a black T-shirt, over which he wore a dark suit jacket. He carried a pistol in a shoulder holster beneath it and wore a radio headset over one ear, the mike at his throat.

“So you both survived Cologne,” he said, his eyes traveling up and down Rachel’s form, as if sizing up a prized calf at a country fair. “How very fortunate. Now we can become better acquainted.”

He tipped his throat mike up and spoke into it. “Clear the church.”

Behind her, Rachel heard doors slam open in the nave. Gray and the others would be caught off guard. She waited for a spate of gunfire or the blast of a grenade. But all she heard was the patter of boots on marble. The church remained silent.

The same must have been noted by their captor.

“Report,” he ordered into his mike.

Rachel did not hear the reply, but she knew from the darkening of his face that the news was not good.

He shoved forward, passing between Vigor and Rachel.

“Watch them,” he growled to the fake priest. A second gunman had taken up post by the back exit to the sacristy.

Their captor yanked open the door to the nave. An armed figure strode over to him, accompanied by the Eurasian woman, holding her Sig Sauer pistol at her side.

“No one’s here,” the man reported.

Rachel spotted other gunmen searching the main nave and side chapels.

“All exits have been guarded.”

“Yes, sir.”

“At all times.”

“Yes, sir.”

The giant’s eyes settled on the Asian woman.

She shrugged. “They might have found an open window.”

With a grumble, he cast a final search around the basilica, then swung around with a sweep of his suit jacket. “Keep searching. Send three men to canvass the outside. They can’t have gotten far.”

As the giant turned, Rachel made her move.

Reaching behind her, she snatched the ceremonial pole with the silver crucifix and rammed its butt end square into the man’s solar plexus. He grunted and fell back into the priest. She yanked the pole back, under her elbow, and slammed the cross end into the gunman’s face behind her.