The Bone Labyrinth

by James Rollins

  Crouching behind the angelic statue, Seichan reached under the torn edge of the nun’s habit and slipped her last blade from an ankle sheath.

  Got to make this count.

  She used the blade’s polished steel surface to spy upon her opponent without exposing herself. In the mirrored reflection, she watched the woman drift closer, angling wider for a better shot. Her body was entirely hidden behind the umbrella, her dark eyes occasionally flashing from around its edges, never at the same place twice.

  Beyond that threat, Seichan had a clear view to the rear door of the church. It was still partly ajar. Shadows milled inside. People were clearly too frightened to flee out into the open with all the gunfire and explosions. She heard children crying, parents trying to hush them. She imagined calls were already being placed to local law enforcement.

  But help would not arrive in time.

  Knowing that, Seichan waited until the woman stepped back onto the gravel path, then made her final move. She feinted to the left side of the statue, as if trying again to go for her abandoned pistol, drawing her opponent that way. Then she rebounded back in the opposite direction, spinning under the left wing of the angel.

  As she dove out of hiding, she whipped her dagger low. It flew from her fingertips, sailed under the umbrella, and caught the momentarily duped woman in the calf.

  Seichan hit the ground, rolled on a shoulder, and slid behind a cement planter. She peeked through the thorns of a rosebush to see her adversary stumble several steps back along the gravel path. Still the woman made no sound, no complaint, and kept her body fully shielded behind the umbrella. Even as she retreated, she fired through her umbrella at Seichan. Though she was shooting blind, two rounds still successfully pelted into the planter.

  The woman was damn good.

  But I’m better.

  As her opponent finally halted and gathered herself to resume her assault, she had come too close to the open door to the church—where Seichan had wanted her to be after spotting an ally inside. With the assassin’s focus fixed on Seichan, the woman had failed to note a dark shadow slip from the doorway behind her.

  Seichan smiled with satisfaction.

  I’m not the only nun you should’ve been worried about.

  Sister Clara descended upon the woman. She swung a heavy brass crucifix in one hand and coldcocked the woman from behind.

  The assassin dropped her umbrella. A gust buffeted it and rolled it across the gardens. The woman crashed to her knees, then to her side.

  Seichan dashed forward, snatching up her pistol from the ground with one hand. As she reached the assassin’s side, she noted those dark eyes had rolled white. Blood seeped thickly into the gravel. Still, the woman’s chest heaved up and down.

  Alive.

  But not for long.

  Seichan aimed her pistol toward that pale forehead, but Sister Clara stepped between her and her target.

  “No,” Clara said.

  Seichan stared daggers at the nun, but Clara refused to back down. Seichan read both the resolution and the compassion in the young woman’s face. The nun might be incited to violence to protect the innocents inside, but she plainly drew the line at cold-blooded murder.

  Seichan growled her frustration, but she also owed the nun for her help. Plus she recognized that they could possibly get information out of this assassin when she woke up. Given the opportunity, Gray would want to interrogate her.

  Seichan glanced up toward the chapel. It was still shrouded in smoke. The gunfire had ceased a minute ago. But what did that mean?

  Impatient and worried, Seichan picked up the assassin’s weapon, still hot from the gunplay, and shoved it toward the nun. “Do you know how to use this?”

  Clara backed a step. “Yes, but—”

  “Either guard her or I shoot her.”

  Clara swallowed and took the weapon. Seichan waited until the nun had the pistol pointed at the limp figure of the assassin. Only then did she twist away and sprint up the steep stairs. With every step, the fears she had held in check burned brighter in her chest.

  You better be okay, Gray.

  1:18 P.M.

  Roland climbed out of the secret tunnel and back into the chapel. He reached an arm down and helped Gray out, half pulling his dazed form free of the dark well. The man’s clothes were shredded, his skin bled from a hundred cuts. A scalp wound ran with a heavy flow of crimson down one side of his face.

  But you saved our lives.

  Gray crawled to the altar and settled on his backside. He sucked on the water bottle Lena had handed him below. She stood guard by the door now.

  “There’s a nun coming,” she said, sounding worried. “With a gun.”

  Roland felt his heart quicken.

  Gray rolled to his knees and yanked out his pistol.

  Lena turned to them, her voice brighter now with relief. “It’s Seichan.”

  Gray fell back to his rear and mumbled, “Thank God.”

  A moment later, the woman’s shadowy form wafted through the smoke and fell into the chapel like a dark falcon. She seemed to take everything in with a glance, her gaze settling on the blasted hole in the floor.

  “Looks like you’ve been busy,” she said.

  “And apparently you have a new vocation,” Gray rasped out, eyeing the shreds of a nun’s habit. “Gotta say, the outfit sort of works for me.”

  Roland frowned at the improper exchange, but he also recognized it as a coping mechanism. He read the concern between them, the shine of love that ran deeper than mere professional partners.

  “Enough sitting around,” Seichan said. She crossed to Gray and brusquely offered a hand to help him up. “Time to get off this mountaintop before anyone else shows up.”

  He smiled through the blood and let her haul him to his feet. “Thanks, dear.”

  “Someone’s got to keep pulling your ass out of the fire.”

  “You’re a little late for that.” Gray hobbled toward the door but glanced back to the secret stairs. His expression looked confused. “That first grenade, the one that fell through the trapdoor before it closed—what happened?”

  Lena answered. “It dropped straight past us and rolled down those steep stairs.”

  “It exploded in the cavern below,” Roland said. “My head’s still ringing from that blast.”

  “But at least we still have our heads,” Lena added.

  “What about Kircher’s Madonna and the skeleton?”

  “We checked . . . before you came crashing back down to us.” Roland shook his head. “The grenade must have exploded at the feet of the Madonna. We found the bronze statue toppled on its side, crushed and charred.”

  Lena sighed heavily. “The bones fared worse. Blasted to dust and burnt slivers. Still, we have what we collected earlier. Hopefully we can—”

  A single gunshot cut her off, cracking loudly across the summit.

  Roland swung toward the door, but Seichan burst past him, shoving Lena deeper inside the chapel.

  Seichan pointed her pistol toward the stairs—then cursed brightly.

  Roland shifted to a window, which offered a view down to the church courtyard. The dark form of a nun lay sprawled on the garden path. He caught a glimpse of a smaller shape vaulting over the fence and vanishing away.

  “What’s wrong?” Lena asked.

  Without any explanation, Seichan simply lunged out of the chapel and fled down the Holy Ladder toward the church.

  Gray limped forward and headed after her. “Stay here,” he ordered them.

  Left alone, Roland eyed Lena.

  She bit her lip, then shook her head. “Screw that.”

  While those might not be the words he would’ve chosen, he agreed with her sentiment. He had his fill with hiding in the shadows, waiting helplessly. Resolved, he and Lena headed out of the smoky chapel and into the sunlight. They ran together down the stairs.

  Still, Seichan reached the courtyard well ahead of any of them. She dropped to a knee beside
the sprawled body. It was Sister Clara. Seichan kept her weapon raised in one hand while checking the nun with her other hand.

  Roland and Lena reached the courtyard only steps behind Gray, who wobbled on his feet from the exertion.

  “What happened?” Gray asked, hurrying forward.

  Seichan turned to them. Her face was a storm of emotions, most of them dark and angry. “That bitch used my own dagger,” she explained, clearly distraught. “Must’ve pulled it out of her leg and stabbed Sister Clara. I didn’t think to take it before going to check on you.”

  Roland imagined Seichan’s concern for her partner had contributed to that lapse. He kneeled next to Sister Clara. He was relieved to see the young nun was still alive, but she was gravely wounded, her face a mask of pain. Blood soaked through her habit, rising around the steel hilt of a blade sticking out of her stomach.

  “Tried to shoot her . . .” Clara wheezed, clutching Roland’s sleeve. “Too fast.”

  “It’s okay,” he consoled her.

  Clara’s eyes implored him. “Forgive me, Father.”

  “There is nothing to forgive, my child.” Roland looked up at the others, unsure what to do.

  Sirens sounded in the distance, rising up from the valley below. A pair of nuns pushed out of the rear door of the church. One carried a red plastic first-aid kit.

  “We have to clear out of here,” Seichan warned, standing up.

  Lena looked reluctant. “But Sister Clara . . .”

  Roland gripped the nun’s fingers, also refusing to leave her side.

  “I don’t think anything vital was hit,” Seichan said. “She should live until help arrives.”

  Her words were callous, but Roland also heard the pain and guilt in her voice.

  Fingers tightened on his hand. Sister Clara stared up at him, then to the others.

  “Go,” she whispered weakly but with clear resolve. “Whatever those potwory were after, stop them.”

  “I promise,” Roland said.

  Lena also nodded.

  With Clara’s permission granted, Roland stood and stepped aside, leaving the young nun to the care of her fellow sisters. He faced Gray and Seichan. He was uncertain where all of this would lead, but he held firm to one clear conviction.

  I will not break that promise.

  15

  April 30, 7:22 P.M. CST

  Beijing, China

  “Now where are they taking us?” Kowalski grumbled under his breath.

  Maria shook her head, as much in the dark as he was. She sat next to the big man in the back of an electric cart that whisked through the depths of the subterranean complex. She noted Kowalski picking at the bandage on his face, remembering his story of Baako attacking him. She also remembered his furtive signal that undercut this story.

  [I’m lying]

  Worry for Baako burned in her gut, along with guilt. She pictured her little boy alone in this strange foreign place. He must be terrified. She wished she could go to him, console him, but that was not where they were headed at the moment.

  After revealing the fossilized bones of the newly discovered hominin species—Homo meganthropus—Major General Jiaying Lau had ordered them to be transported to a new destination. The general sat in front beside the driver, talking on her cell phone. From her clipped and angry tones, it sounded like she was browbeating the caller.

  Finally the electric cart slowed before a tall set of double doors. A familiar figure in camouflage-colored fatigues waited for them, standing stiffly, his expression stoic. It was Gao’s brother, Chang Sun.

  Jiaying twisted in her seat to face them. “Remain here.”

  The general climbed out of the cart and drew Chang several steps away.

  “Where does she think we can go?” Kowalski said, slumping deeper in his seat.

  A second cart pulled up behind them, carrying Dr. Dayne Arnaud and a pair of armed soldiers. Arnaud was prodded out of his cart and marched over to them. The paleontologist eyed the tall set of double doors. A steel track system ran along the ceiling and passed through the top of those doors.

  Arnaud sighed. “It appears we are getting closer to the reason you were brought here, Dr. Crandall.”

  Maria sensed the same. After seeing those remains, she knew the Chinese must be pursuing ways to harvest specific sequences of DNA from the giant’s bones, all in order to engineer a stronger soldier.

  But how far along had they gotten?

  Arnaud crossed his arms, likely worried about the same. “As I understand it, your research—and your sister’s—was all about proving that the Great Leap Forward in human intelligence was due to the introduction of new genes gained from the interbreeding of early man with Neanderthals.”

  “That’s basically our hypothesis. That this hybridization produced a small tribe of individuals who were capable of greater intuitive leaps, who looked at the world differently than either of their parents.”

  “And it was from these few unique souls that the Great Leap Forward was driven.”

  She heard the incredulous tone in his voice and pushed back against it. “Multiple statistical models support such a theory. Knowledge is like a virus, capable of growing exponentially under the right circumstances. It would take the creativity and innovation of only a small population of super-enhanced individuals to alter the world: to spread new insights, to share new tools, to teach new methods of art and ritual. In fact, it’s one of the dangers of exploring this path. If such super-enhanced individuals could be engineered today, the result would be world-altering.”

  “Or -ending,” Arnaud added, staring toward Jiaying. “Especially in the wrong hands?”

  Maria understood.

  “How close were you and your sister to achieving this goal?” he asked.

  She pictured Baako, a model of that same Neanderthal hybridization, and the astounding learning curve he had already demonstrated. While she and Lena had made significant steps in that direction, much still remained unknown.

  She admitted that aloud. “Genes that affect intelligence are still poorly understood and likely involve a complicated interaction of multiple sequences. What we are exploring is a new frontier.”

  “But you and your sister are pioneers who have begun to blaze a trail into that territory.” His gaze remained on the pair of Chinese officers. “Now you must be wary of who follows.”

  As Maria watched, the exchange between Jiaying and Chang grew more heated. She heard Lena’s name several times amid the flurry of Mandarin. Clearly something had gone wrong. But what did this mean for the fate of her sister?

  Kowalski mumbled under his breath, “Sounds like the shit hit the fan out in Italy.” He crossed his arms with a slight satisfied sneer to his lips. “And I can guess who was throwing that shit around.”

  7:29 P.M.

  “And you have no idea where they’ve gone?” Jiaying asked. She kept her arms crossed, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Chang to explain his latest failure.

  He kept his head bowed, his silence answering her question.

  The recent intelligence out of Italy was bleak. Not only had Lena Crandall slipped through the snare set up by Chang’s handpicked team, but SISMI—the Italian Intelligence and Military Security Service—had recovered the team’s bodies.

  “The Italians may have their suspicions of who sent those men,” Chang said, “but we still have full deniability. The men I commissioned were ghosts, shadows with no official record with the People’s Liberation Army. And no locals were killed, so the matter can easily be spun as a terrorist attack against a Christian target.”

  Though Chang’s assessment would likely prove correct in the long run, it still did not diminish his larger failure. Maria’s sister had once again escaped.

  Knowing this, Chang attempted to dilute his culpability by spreading the blame wider. “If you had told me that you had an asset on site, perhaps the operation would’ve had a more positive outcome.”

  Jiaying set her lips into a hard smile. “
Duì,” she agreed. “But at least First Lieutenant Wei survived that assault, and she is in active pursuit of the targets as we speak.”

  First Lieutenant Shu Wei was one of the youngest members of the Chengdu Military Region Special Forces, a unit code-named Falcon, which specialized in target acquisition, along with sabotage operations and offensive strikes. Shu Wei was also Jiaying’s niece, daughter to her sister. Jiaying had used her contacts in military intelligence to covertly enlist Shu Wei for this mission, to infiltrate and intervene as necessary.

  Jiaying continued, “First Lieutenant Wei has also learned who is accompanying Lena Crandall and that Croatian priest. They’re Americans, likely a covert group tied to their military. From talking to a nun prior to your assault, Wei also learned what Lena’s group was searching for.”

  “What was that?” Chang asked, his tone more subdued now.

  “Information regarding a seventeenth-century priest named Athanasius Kircher.”

  Chang frowned, plainly confused—as was Jiaying, but she maintained a passive expression as she continued.

  “Wei will be pursuing this course. To determine how this unusual angle of investigation might threaten our goals . . . and to eliminate Lena Crandall.”

  “But I thought we wanted to capture the geneticist alive.”

  “After so many failures on your part, I’ve come to the conclusion that such a plan is too risky. To safely acquire her requires a delicacy that we can no longer afford. So Shu Wei is gathering a strike team from her own unit to hunt down and eliminate this threat once and for all.”

  Chang straightened his back. “Then with my support, I’m sure—”

  She turned on a heel, dismissing him. “That won’t be necessary. Clearly you have more than enough to handle on site here.”

  She walked away, imagining his face going dark. She took a final moment to goad him further.

  “With your attention fully focused here, I have confidence that you can at least keep our facility secure.” She glanced back to him. “Of course, any further failure will require a harsher reprimand.”