James Rollins - Map of Bones

The third man was immediately recognizable by his size.

Raoul.

He carried a steel case. He opened it and removed a clear plastic cylinder, full of a familiar grayish powder. The amalgam. They must have pulverized the bone down to its powdery form. Raoul slid the cylinder through the low opening into Saint Peter’s tomb.

Plugging in the battery…

With everything in place, Gray could wait no longer. The apparatus was set. It was their one chance to catch the Court off guard, perhaps to drive them off, abandoning their gear behind.

“Ready to go blackout,” Gray whispered. His hand moved to the transmitter that controlled the sonic and flash bombs. “Take out as many as you can while they’re stunned, but don’t take any needless chances. Keep moving. Stay out of sight.”

Affirmatives answered him. Monk was holed up near the door. Kat and Rachel had found another crypt to hide themselves inside. The assault team remained unaware of their presence.

Gray watched the trio of men exit the tomb area, trailing wires that led to the device. Raoul closed the gate, shielding himself from any danger. Atop the metal platform, he pressed one hand against his ear, plainly communicating the okay to proceed.

“Blackout on the count of five,” Gray whispered. “Earplugs in place, goggles blinkered closed. Here we go.”

Gray counted down in his head. Five, four, three… Blind, he rested one hand on his pistol and the other on the laptop. Two, one, zero .

He hit the button on the laptop.

Though deafened by his earplugs, he could feel the deep whump of the sonic charges behind his sternum. He waited a three-count for the strobing flash grenades to expire. He blinkered open his goggles, then yanked out the earplugs. Shots echoed across the necropolis. Gray rolled to the entrance to the crypt.

Directly ahead, the metal platform was empty.

No one was in sight.

Raoul and his two men were gone.

Where?

The sound of gunfire intensified. A firefight waged in the dark necropolis. Gray remembered Raoul had received some communiqué just before he had ignited the sonic and flash charges. Had it been a warning? From whom?

Gray searched the vicinity. The world had receded to shades of green. He climbed the steps to the platform. He had to take the risk to secure the apparatus and the amalgam.

As he reached the top, he kept low, edging on his toes, one hand on the platform for support, his pistol swiveling to cover all directions.

Light suddenly blazed through the window ahead. It revealed Raoul standing on the far side, a few steps from the tomb. Upon the attack, the man must have dodged back through the gate. He met Gray’s eyes and lifted his arms. In his hands, he held the control device to ignite the amalgam.

Too late.

Futilely, Gray aimed and fired.

But the bulletproof glass repelled the slug.

Raoul smiled and twisted the handle on the control device.

THE FIRST quake threw Vigor into the air. Or maybe it was the ground that had dropped below his feet. Either way, he went airborne.

Cries rose across the basilica.

As he fell back down, he took advantage of the moment to plant an elbow square into the nose of the traitor Alberto, who had tumbled back with the first tremor. He swung next and punched Alberto a solid blow to the Adam’s apple.

The man fell heavily. The pistol tumbled from his fingers. Vigor grabbed it just as the next tremor followed the first. He was knocked to his knees. By now, screams and yells erupted all around. But beneath it all, a deep, hollow thrum vibrated, as if a bell as large as the basilica had been struck and they were all trapped inside.

Vigor remembered the description given by the witness to the Cologne survivor. A pressure as if the walls squeezed in on themselves. It was the same here. All noises — cries, pleas, prayers — were perfectly discernible but muted nevertheless.

While he climbed to his feet, the floor continued trembling. The polished marble surface seemed to ripple and shiver, appearing watery. Vigor shoved the pistol under his belt.

He turned to go to the aid of the pope and Cardinal Spera.

As he stepped forward, he felt it before he saw it. A sudden increase in pressure, deafening, squeezing inward. Then it let loose. Up from the base of the four bronze columns of Bernini’s baldacchino , fiery cascades of electrical energy spiraled upward, spitting and crackling.

They rushed up the columns, across the canopy’s roof, and met at the gold globe. A crack of thunder erupted. The ground jolted again, shattering fissures in the marble floor. From the canopy’s globe, a brilliant fork of lightning erupted. It blasted upward, striking the underside of Michelangelo’s dome and dancing across it. The ground bumped again, more violently.

Cracks skittered across the dome. Plates of plaster rained.

It was all coming down.

MONK PICKED himself up off the floor. Blood ran into one eye. He had landed face-first into the corner of a crypt, cracking his goggles, slicing his eyebrow.

Blind now, he crouched and fished for his weapon. The shotgun’s built-in night scope would help him see.

As he searched, the ground continued to vibrate under his fingertips. All gunfire had stopped after the first quake.

Monk reached forward, sweeping the ground near the crypt. His shotgun couldn’t have gone far.

He felt something hard at his fingertips.

Thank God.

He reached forward and realized his mistake. It was not the butt of his weapon. It was the toe of a boot.

Behind him, he felt the hot barrel of a rifle press against the base of his skull.

Shit.

GRAY HEARD the crack of a rifle blast across the necropolis. It was the first shot since the quakes began. He had been thrown off the metal platform and had landed near the mausoleum where he’d hid his laptop. He had rolled into a ball, taking a blow to his shoulder, keeping his goggles and pistol in place. But he had lost his radio.

Shattered shards of glass littered the stone street, blown out of the platform window with the first violent quake.

He searched around him. Up the few steps to the metal platform, the wash of light still radiated from the tomb area. He had to know what was going on in there. But he couldn’t assault the gate by himself. At least not without knowing the lay of the land.

Making certain no eyes were upon him, he dove back into the mausoleum. The planted cameras should still be transmitting.

As he lay flat on his belly, one arm covering the entrance with the pistol, he engaged the laptop. The split-screen image bloomed. The camera pointing into the main necropolis revealed nothing but darkness. No further shots were heard. The necropolis had gone deathly silent again.

What had happened to the others?

With no answers, he focused on the opposite side of the screen. Nothing seemed to have changed. Gray spotted two men with rifles pointed back toward the gate, Raoul’s guards. But there was no sign of the big man. The tomb seemed unchanged. But the image, the entire image on the screen, pulsed slightly, in tune with the vibration in the stone floor. It was as if the cameras were picking up some emanation given off by the charged device, a field of energy radiating out.

But where was Raoul?

Gray reached out and rewound the digital recorder back a full minute, stopping at the spot where Raoul stood near the tomb and twisted the control handle to his device.

On the screen, Raoul turned to watch the result. Green lights flared on the two plates fixed to either side of the tomb. Movement caught his attention. Gray used a toggle to zoom in on the tomb’s small opening. The cylinder of amalgam powder vibrated — then rose off the floor.