“And what of his quest concerning Kircher?” Gray asked. “Did it ever lead anywhere?”
Roland smiled enigmatically. “It led to a mystery that has baffled archaeologists for decades, one that would eventually end with a British expedition into the Ecuadorian Andes, involving over a hundred soldiers and scientists, all led by a famous American hero.”
An American hero?
“Who are you talking about?” Gray asked.
Roland hefted the sphere of rock from the tabletop, balancing the sculpture in his palm, showing its perfect rendering of the lunar landscape across half its surface.
“The expedition was led by Neil Armstrong,” he answered with a broad smile. “The first man to walk on the moon.”
Before Gray could respond to this news, a sharp, angry shout rose behind him.
“That bitch!”
Gray turned to see Seichan spinning from the window and waving them all away.
“Run!” she shouted, her eyes panicked.
6:22 P.M.
Seichan vaulted over the corner of the desk.
A breath ago, she had spotted a clutch of nuns in dark habits exiting through the main entrance of the Vatican’s university building. She had barely given them a second glance until one broke away, stepping with a slight limp toward a parked motorcycle. The oddity was enough to draw her attention. At the curb, the nun suddenly turned, parted her robe, and pulled free a compact assault rifle.
As the woman spun and pointed the barrel toward the window, Seichan caught a glimpse of the face hidden under the habit’s wimple. It was the Chinese assassin. Apparently the woman had shed her disguise as a tour guide and had assumed the role of a nun, stealing a page out of Seichan’s earlier playbook.
As Seichan skidded over the desktop, the windowpane shattered behind her. A dark object shot high overhead and ricocheted off a rafter.
Grenade.
Ahead of her, Gray was already in motion. He grabbed Lena around the waist with one arm and snatched Kircher’s book from the table. He barreled into Roland and drove the priest toward the office door.
Seichan would not make it.
Once past the desk, she hit the floor, skidded low on her back, and slid under the library table. She spun and kicked the table’s edge, sending it toppling over on its side, a shield between her and the grenade as it struck the floor to the far side of the desk.
The explosion rocked the room, the concussion pounding her head and popping her ears. The force of the blast shoved her and the table toward the door, amid a rain of wooden splinters and a cloud of choking smoke.
Gray had made it out to the hall, sheltering beyond the threshold. He grabbed her ankle and dragged her free of the office.
She rolled into a low crouch, scanning both directions for any other threat. She spotted no one. This section of the university building was secured with a passcode-locked system—but after such a commotion, Seichan knew any safeguards could be easily circumvented during the chaos to come.
Which was likely the intent.
Someone wanted them smoked out into the open.
Gray came to the same conclusion. “We need a way out of here!” he shouted above the ringing in her ears. “But not any of the usual exits.”
“The basement!” Roland pointed down the hall. “There’s a service tunnel, part of an old Roman aqueduct. It leads to an exit several streets over.”
“Show us,” Gray said, setting them in motion.
Seichan followed, but something nagged at her. She glanced back at the dark cloud rolling out the office door. She remembered the flying debris of the blasted desk, but the explosion had been mostly smoke and noise.
No shrapnel.
Gray noted her starting to lag. “What’s wrong?”
She turned back around, unsure, and waved him forward, certain of only one thing. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
7:31 P.M.
First Lieutenant Shu Wei sat on the idling motorcycle at the rendezvous point near Piazza Navona. With the sun sitting low on the horizon, shadows filled the square ahead. Tourists and locals idled and chattered, drifting toward open-air restaurants for dinner.
No one paid her any attention.
Over the past hour, she had shed her disguise and disposed of her rifle, all the while maintaining contact with the three men assigned to her in Rome. She now listened to the phone at her ear as a secure connection was made to Beijing.
A stern voice answered. “Report.”
She recognized the brusque tone of Major General Lau and stiffened her back as if her aunt stood before her. “The targets are on the run. Unfortunately the men posted at the exits report no sign of them leaving the building.”
“That is indeed unfortunate.”
Shu bristled at the anger she heard in the other’s voice. After events up in the mountains, she had barely had any time to set up a proper ambush. Still, it was only through her resourcefulness and quick thinking that they had gained even this advantage.
Before escaping the mountain and stealing the motorbike, she had planted a tracker in the wheel well of the lone car still in the lot. It had allowed her to shadow her targets and close in on them once they reached the congestion of Rome. She had caught up in time to see the foursome entering the university building.
Afterward, it had been easy to incapacitate a nun in an empty hall, hide her body in a closet, and don the stolen habit. It took little effort from there to inquire about the arrival of such a battered and unusual group, to discern where they had gone. Then she had caught sight of the Croatian priest heading down to the library. Taking advantage of the opportunity to eliminate one target immediately, she had followed him, but before she could slip a dagger between his ribs, the priest had entered a section of the library where she couldn’t follow.
Still, she had gleaned enough from his inquiries at the front desk to tell he was investigating something quite diligently. She remembered that the nun who had attacked her back in the courtyard of the Sanctuary of Mentorella had told her this group had been inquiring about a seventeenth-century priest.
Apparently that investigation was ongoing.
While Shu had waited for the priest to return from the stacks, she had called Major General Lau and reported on what was happening. As ever, her aunt was not one to dismiss the variables in any equation. Lau had ordered her to discover what the others were searching for here, clearly fearful of being blindsided by whatever information this group sought to uncover.
So Shu bided her time in the main library. After nearly an hour, the Croatian priest finally reappeared and headed up to the secure section of the university that housed the professors’ private offices. Shu had wanted to eavesdrop on the group, but entry to that area required an access code. And without a laser microphone, she had no way of listening at the window from the streets below.
Major General Lau had suggested Shu flush the targets out into the open, to set them running, to follow them wherever that path might lead. The smoke grenade had accomplished the first half, but her targets proved to be resourceful, vanishing unseen into the shadows before she could reach the office.
“If you’ve lost them,” Lau warned over the phone now, “there will be repercussions, even for a niece I hold so dear.”
“It is no matter,” Shu said.
“Why is that?”
Shu looked down at her other hand, at the object she had recovered from the office during the bedlam that followed the explosion of her smoke bomb. She flicked the switch, and the iPad glowed to life. The device belonged to the priest, left behind in the group’s haste to escape.
Shu stared down at the last image viewed by the others, still frozen on the screen, and smiled as she answered her aunt.
“Because I know where they’re headed.”
THIRD
THE LOST CITY
Σ
17
May 1, 8:04 A.M. CST
Beijing, China
Whatever you
do, don’t move.
Kowalski lay perfectly still in his bedroll. He had awakened a few moments ago to find his arm pinned under the bulk of the gorilla. Baako snored gently, curled into a ball with his head nestled in the crook of Kowalski’s arm. Maria slept on Baako’s other side, spooning the little guy from within her sleeping bag. One of her arms was draped over the gorilla’s shoulders with her fingertips resting on Kowalski’s cheek.
He feared waking them, knowing the horrible day that awaited them both. Though he didn’t know the time, he suspected it was early morning. According to Major General Lau’s timetable, someone would soon be collecting Baako for his operation. Kowalski pictured the tortured chimpanzee, trussed up with its brain exposed and wired to monitoring devices.
Fuckin’ bastards . . .
He stared at the small face on his arm, noting the tiny twitches of Baako’s eyes as he dreamed. Past the gorilla’s shoulders, Maria breathed evenly and deeply, her lips slightly parted. Slumber relaxed her features, making her appear even younger. He found himself fixated on the length of her eyelashes.
His heart ached to keep them safe, but all he could do for now was let them sleep, to have this final moment of peace together . . . if only for a little longer.
He extended his gaze beyond the cage to the row of cameras positioned along the ceiling. He followed them back to the large steel doors at the other end of the cellblock. A crimson sign glowed from the shadows back there. He squinted at those letters.
Though he didn’t read Chinese, he was certain they were the same characters he’d seen back at the vivisection lab, hanging above the curve of windows that overlooked the habitat of the gorilla hybrids. Yesterday, as he had eyed those lumbering beasts, he had spotted a steel door at the ground level of their pen, sealed off by a cage of thick bars.
That’s gotta be the same door.
He studied the pens that made up this cellblock. He now understood the heavy gouges in the concrete, the thick manacles hanging from the walls.
They must do tests on those creatures here.
He remembered the tallest of the bunch, the gorilla with a broad back of silver fur, how easily it had tossed that bloody arm up at them, fury glowing in those eyes and reverberating from its howl. The beasts might be naturally savage, genetically prone to hostility and aggression, but Kowalski was certain of one other detail about them.
They’re damned pissed at their makers.
And probably for a good reason.
As if sensing his thoughts, an exceptionally loud roar burst from back there, ululating up into a piercing scream.
Maria’s body jerked at the noise, her eyelids popping open, her face wrenching with fear as her brain fought to catch up. Baako responded in kind, balling tighter for a clenched moment, then exploding to his feet in a low, wary crouch. He chuffed his anxiety, his gaze sweeping everywhere at once.
“It’s all right,” Kowalski told them both.
Yeah, it was a lie, but what the hell else was he going to say?
Maria took several shaky breaths, then sat up and placed a hand on Baako’s hip. “Calm down,” she cooed to him. “I’m here.”
Baako hooted once, then lowered to his haunches. With his large brown eyes fixed on the steel door, he hugged one arm nervously around his hairy knees and reached back for Maria.
She took his hand and pulled him closer.
Kowalski used this moment to wiggle out of his bedroll and slowly climbed to his feet, stretching kinks out of every muscle in his body.
“What time is it?” Maria asked.
He shrugged. “Morning, that’s all I know.”
She licked her lips and looked to the other side of the cellblock, to the double set of doors that opened out into the rest of the subterranean facility. Though she didn’t say a word, he read the worry shining from her face. She pulled Baako more firmly to her side, as if by sheer will alone she could keep him from harm.
Baako shivered under her arm, clearly sensing her tension and fear.
She turned to Kowalski. “What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to cooperate,” Kowalski answered her bluntly, seeing no reason to sugarcoat the situation. “Any other course will only get you killed, and Baako will still end up under the knife. At least with you alive, you can be there for him—even if worse comes to worst.”
His words did nothing to dim that shine of dismay in her eyes. And he didn’t expect they would. He spoke more for the benefit of those who might be watching and eavesdropping on their cell.
Let them think we’re going to play ball.
He shifted his back to the cameras and lifted one hand. He wanted to offer Maria a measure of hope, though it was admittedly a thin one. He formed three letters with his fingers.
[GPS]
A deep crinkle formed between her brows as she tried to understand. He knew she must have wondered what had happened to Baako’s wristband with the GPS unit embedded in it. He had kept quiet about its fate until now, fearing any hint might expose his actions yesterday.
He glanced over to the cold pile of dung in the corner of the cell. He was glad the maid service in this place was so lax, not that the Chinese would have discovered anything in that pile except for some ground-up bits of rubber.
Yesterday, while he and Baako had eaten—or mostly pretended to—Kowalski had had the gorilla bite apart the band, enough so that Kowalski could peel out the GPS unit. The electronic device was barely the size of penny. Once it was removed, Kowalski had Baako hide the excess bits of chewed-up rubber in his dung. Afterward, Kowalski had secretly planted the device in a place where it had the best chance of being ferried up to the surface, where hopefully the unit’s signal would be detected again.
He touched the bandage still taped to his face. He pictured Baako’s faux attack, remembering his own fumbling flight from the cage, how he had bobbled into the guard who had opened the door to let him out. With the guard focused on the angry gorilla, it had been easy to slip the GPS unit into the pocket of the man’s uniform. With luck, the guard would exit this place when he got off duty, returning aboveground. If anyone was still monitoring that tracker, it would lead them to that man—and hopefully to this place.
Kowalski kept his hand shielded by his body and formed three more letters with his fingers, naming that guard.
[GAO]
8:23 A.M.
Kat spoke rapidly, her voice rushed with excitement and urgency. “We just picked up a ping off the tracking band.”
“Where?” Monk asked.
“I’m sending you the location and real-time plotting of its path right now.”
As Monk waited, he looked out the window of the hotel, which was located less than half a mile east of the Beijing Zoo. He had requested a room on the highest floor, which afforded him a view all the way to the spire of the aquarium and the zoo’s northern gate. Over the past night, he and Kimberly had taken shifts to monitor the military presence over there, watching with binoculars for any significant change in troop movements.
Overhearing the phone conversation now, Kimberly pulled on her jacket. A moment ago, she had been speaking to her husband back in Virginia, her voice turning warmer, a soft smile playing about her lips. Monk could tell when the woman’s three-year-old daughter was put on the phone. Kimberly’s words became even sweeter, higher-pitched. Monk had two daughters of his own and easily recognized that mix of worry and love.
“You should have the information now,” Kat said.
Kimberly joined him, looking over his shoulder at the phone’s screen. A small glowing blue dot marked the first reappearance of the tracker’s signal, and a dotted line continued in a path across a map of Beijing.
“That’s odd,” Kimberly murmured.
Monk glanced to her.
“That first ping is about a mile southeast of the zoo.” She swung around and opened her laptop. Her fingers danced across the keypad, bringing up satellite maps and various data windows. Finally she made a small
, disgruntled sound.
“What is it?” Monk asked.
“That location is a former restaurant. It was shuttered back in 2012 and never reopened.” She closed her laptop and pointed to the door. “Let’s grab our gear and go.”
He understood her haste as another blue dash slowly extended the trail across the city map. They had to reach that path before the signal vanished again.
Monk grabbed his pack and joined Kimberly at the door. They hurried to the elevator and dropped down to the lobby. Once in a taxi, Kimberly offered her assessment.
“For the signal to have reappeared so far away from the zoo, I wager that restaurant must be the site of one of the entrances that leads down to the Dìxià Chéng, the Underground City.”
Monk remembered her telling him about the old warren of cold-war-era bomb shelters that extended for almost a hundred square miles beneath Beijing, connecting most of the major city sites.
“So you’re thinking they’ve moved Kowalski and Maria through those tunnels?”
“It only makes sense. In the past, the Chinese army often used those tunnels to hide their troop movements. Back in 1989, the army transferred soldiers through those same passageways during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, to hide their maneuvers from the rest of the world.”
“And I imagine those same passageways could be used to transport construction equipment just as readily, allowing the Chinese to construct new underground facilities without the world growing any wiser.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to pull off. Some of those tunnels are said to be as wide as four-lane highways, large enough to accommodate tank battalions.”
As the taxi turned a corner, Monk monitored their progress. “We’re just a quarter mile away.”
Kimberly leaned forward and spoke rapidly to the taxi driver in Mandarin, pointing where they wanted to go. She then settled back to her seat.
“Looks like we’re headed toward a residential district,” she said. “One of the old hutong neighborhoods.”
The Bone Labyrinth Page 27
