Gray had his own problems with her past. He had personal reasons for disliking those in the intelligence field. They operated aloof, far from the battlefield, farther than even bomber pilots, but more deadly. Gray bore blood on his hands because of poor intel. Innocent blood. He could not shake a certain level of distrust.
He stared at Kat. Her green eyes were hard. Her whole body seemed starched. He pushed aside her past. She was his teammate now.
He took a deep breath. He was her leader.
Act the part…
He cleared his throat. Time to get to business. He lifted one finger. “Okay, first, what do we know?”
Monk answered, his face dead serious. “Not much.”
Kat maintained a fixed expression. “We know the perpetrators are somehow involved with the cult society known as the Royal Dragon Court.”
“That’s as good as saying they’re involved with Hari Krishnas,” Monk countered. “The group is as shadowy and weedy as crabgrass. We don’t have a clue who is truly behind all this.”
Gray nodded. They had been faxed this information while en route. But more disturbingly, news had reached them of an attack upon their counterparts in the Vatican. It had to be the work of the Dragon Court again. But why? What sort of clandestine war zone were they flying into? He needed answers.
“Let’s break this down then,” Gray said, realizing he sounded like Director Crowe. The other two looked at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. “Back to the basics. Means, motive, and opportunity.”
“They had plenty of opportunity,” Monk said. “Striking after midnight. When the streets were mostly empty. But why not wait until the cathedral was empty, too?”
“To send a message,” Kat answered. “A blow against the Catholic Church.”
“We can’t make that assumption,” Monk said. “Look at it more broadly. Maybe it was all sleight of hand. Meant to misdirect. To commit a crime so bloody that all attention would be pulled from the rather insignificant theft of some dusty bones.”
Kat didn’t look convinced, but she was difficult to read, playing her cards close to the chest. Like she had been trained.
Gray settled the matter. “Either way, for now, exploring opportunity offers no inroads into who perpetrated the massacre. Let’s move on to motive.”
“Why steal bones?” Monk said with a shake of his head and sat back. “Maybe they mean to ransom them back to the Catholic Church.”
Kat shook her head. “If it was only money, they would’ve stolen the golden reliquary. So it must be something else about the bones. Something we have no clue about. So maybe it’s best we leave that thread to our Vatican contacts.”
Gray frowned. He was still uncomfortable working jointly with an organization like the Vatican, an establishment built on secrets and religious dogma. He had been raised Roman Catholic, and while he still felt strong stirrings of faith, he had also studied other religions and philosophies: Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism. He had learned much, but he never could answer one question from his studies: What was he seeking?
Gray shook his head. “For now, we’ll mark the motivation for this crime with another big question mark. We’ll pursue that in more depth when we meet with the others. That leaves only means to discuss.”
“Which goes back to the whole financial discussion,” Monk said. “This operation was well planned and swiftly executed. From the manpower alone, this was an expensive operation. Money backed this theft.”
“Money and a level of technology that we don’t understand,” Kat said.
Monk nodded. “But what about that weird gold in the Communion bread?”
“Monatomic gold,” Kat mumbled, creasing lines around her lips.
Gray pictured the gold-plated electrode. They had been given reams of data in their dossier on this strange gold, culled from labs around the world: British Aerospace, Argonne National Laboratories, Boeing Labs in Seattle, the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.
The powder had not been ordinary gold dust, the flaky form of metallic gold. It had been an entirely new elemental state of gold, classified as m-state. Rather than its usual metallic matrix, the white powder was gold broken down into individual atoms. Monatomic, or m-state. Until recently, scientists had no idea that gold could transmute, both naturally and artificially, into an inert white powder form.
But what did it all mean?
“Okay,” Gray said, “we’ve all read the files. Let’s round-robin that topic. See if it leads anywhere.”
Monk spoke up. “First, it’s not just gold that does this. We should keep that in mind. It seems any of the transitional metals on the periodic table — platinum, rhodium, iridium, and others — can also dissolve into a powder.”
“Not dissolve,” Kat said. She glanced down to the dossier with its photocopied articles from Platinum Metals Review, Scientific American, even Jane’s Defense Weekly, the journal of the UK’s Ministry of Defense. It appeared as if she itched to open the folder.
“The term is disaggregate,” she continued. “These m-state metals break down into both individual atoms and microclusters. From a physics standpoint, this state arises when time-forward and time-reverse electrons fuse around the nucleus of the atom, causing each atom to lose its chemical reactivity to its neighbor.”
“You mean they stop sticking to each other.” Monk’s eyes danced a bit with amusement.
“To put it crudely,” Kat said with a sigh. “It’s this lack of chemical reactivity that makes the metal lose its metallic appearance and disaggregate into a powder. A powder undetectable to ordinary lab equipment.”
“Ah…” Monk muttered.
Gray frowned at Monk. He shrugged. Gray knew his friend was playing dumb.
“I think,” Kat went on, oblivious of the exchange, “that the perpetrators knew about this lack of chemical reactivity and trusted the gold powder would never be discovered. It was their second mistake.”
“Their second?” Monk asked.
“They left alive a witness. The young man. Jason Pendleton.” Kat opened her dossier folder. It seemed she couldn’t resist the temptation after all. “Back to the matter of the gold. What about this one paper on superconductivity?”
Gray nodded. He had to give Kat credit. She had zeroed in on the most intriguing aspect of these m-state metals. Even Monk sat straighter now.
Kat continued, “While the powder appears inert to analyzing equipment, the atomic state is far from low-energy. It was as if each atom took all the energy it used to react to its neighbor and turned it inward on itself. The energy deformed the atom’s nucleus, stretching it out to an elongated shape, known as…” She searched the article at her fingertips. Gray noted it had been marked up with a yellow highlighter.
“An asymmetrical high-spin state,” she said. “Physicists have known that such high-spin atoms can pass energy from one atom to the next with no net energy loss.”
“Superconductivity,” Monk said with no dissembling.
“Energy passed into a superconductor would continue to flow through the material with no loss of power. A perfect superconductor would allow this energy to flow infinitely, until the end of time itself.”
Silence settled over them as they all pondered the many perplexities here.
Monk finally stretched. “Great. We’ve ground the mystery down to the level of the atomic nucleus. Let’s pull back. What does any of this have to do with the murders at the cathedral? Why poison the wafers with this weird gold powder? How did the powder kill?”
They were all good questions. Kat closed her dossier, conceding that no answers would be found there.
Gray was beginning to understand why the director had given him these two partners. It went beyond their backgrounds as an intelligence specialist and a forensics expert. Kat had a focused ability to concentrate on minutiae, to pick out details others might miss. But Monk, no less sharp, was better at looking at the bigger picture, spotting trends across a broader landscape.
But wher
e did that leave him?
“It seems we still have much to investigate,” he finished lamely.
Monk lifted one eyebrow. “As I said from the start, we don’t have a lot to go on.”
“That’s why we’ve been called in. To solve the impossible.” Gray checked his watch, stifling a yawn. “And to do that, we should grab as much downtime as we can until we land in Germany.”
The other two nodded. Gray stood and crossed to a seat a short distance away. Monk grabbed pillows and blankets. Kat closed the shades on the windows, dimming the cabin. Gray watched them.
His team. His responsibility.
To be a man, you first have to act like one.
Gray accepted his own pillow and sat down. He did not recline his seat. Despite his exhaustion, he did not expect to get much sleep. Monk toggled down the overhead lights. Darkness descended.
“Good night, Commander,” Kat said from across the cabin.
As the others settled, Gray sat in the darkness, wondering how he got here. Time stretched. The engines rumbled white noise. Still, any semblance of sleep escaped him.
In the privacy of the moment, Gray reached into the pocket of his jeans. He slipped out a rosary, gripping the crucifix at the end, hard enough to hurt his palm. It was a graduation gift from his grandfather, who had died only two months after that. Gray had been in boot camp. He hadn’t been able to attend the funeral. He leaned back. After today’s briefing, he had called his folks, lying about a last-minute business trip to cover his absence.
Running again…
Fingers traveled down the hard beads of his rosary.
He said no prayers.
10:24 P.M.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND
CHTEAU SAUVAGE crouched in the mountain pass of the Savoy Alps like a stone giant. Its battlements were ten feet thick. Its single foursquare tower crested its walls. The only access to its gates was over a stone bridge spanning the pass. While it was not the largest castle of the Swiss canton, it was certainly one of the oldest, constructed during the twelfth century. Its roots were even older. Its battlements were built on the ruins of a Roman castra, an ancient military fortification from the first century.
It was also one of the oldest privately owned castles, belonging to the Sauvage family since the fifteenth century, when the Bernese army wrested control of Lausanne from the decadent bishops during the Reformation. Its parapets overlooked Lake Geneva far below and the handsome cliff-side city of Lausanne, once a fishing village, now a cosmopolitan town of lakeside parks, museums, resorts, clubs, and cafés.
The castle’s current master, Baron Raoul de Sauvage, ignored the lamp-lit view of the dark city and descended the stairs that led below the castle. He had been summoned. Behind him, a huge wooly dog, weighing a massive seventy kilos, followed his steps. The Bernese mountain dog’s black-and-brown shaggy coat brushed the ancient stone steps.
Raoul also had a kennel of pit-fighting dogs, massive hundred-kilo brutes from Gran Canaria, short-haired, thick-necked, tortured to a savage edge. He bred champions of the blood sport.
But right now, Raoul had matters even bloodier to settle.
He passed the dungeon level of the castle with its stone caves. The cells now housed his extensive wine collection, a perfect cellar, but one section harkened back to the old days. Four stone cells had been updated with stainless steel gates, electronic locks, and video surveillance. Near the cells, one large room still housed ancient torture devices…and a few modern ones. His family had helped several Nazi leaders escape out of Austria after World War II, families with ties to the Hapsburgs. They had been hidden down here. As payment, Raoul’s grandfather had taken his share, his “toll” as he called it, which had helped keep the castle within the family.
But now, at the age of thirty-three, Raoul would surpass his grandfather. Raoul, born a bastard to his father, had been given title to both estate and heritage at the age of sixteen, when his father died. He was the only living male offspring. And among the Sauvage family, genetic ties were given precedence over those of marriage. Even his birth had been conceived by arrangement.
Another of Grandfather’s tolls.
The Baron of Sauvage climbed down even deeper into the mountainside, hunching away from the roof, followed by his dog. A string of bare electrical lights illuminated his way.
The stone steps became natural hewn rock. Here Roman legionnaires had tread in ancient times, often leading a sacrificial bull or goat down to the cave below. The chamber had been converted into a mithraeumby the Romans, a temple to the god Mithra, a sun god imported from Iran and taken to heart by the empire’s soldiers. Mithraism predated Christianity yet bore uncanny similarities. Mithra’s birthday was celebrated on December 25. The god’s worship involved baptism and the consumption of a sacred meal of bread and wine. Mithra also had twelve disciples, held Sunday sacred, and described a heaven and a hell. Upon his death, Mithra was also buried in a tomb, only to rise again in three days.
From this, some scholars claimed Christianity had incorporated Mithraic mythology into its own ritual. It was not unlike the castle here, the new standing on the shoulders of the old, the strong surpassing the weak. Raoul saw nothing wrong with this, even respected it.
It was the natural order.
Raoul descended the last steps and entered the wide subterranean grotto. The roof of the cave was a natural stone dome, crudely carved with stars and a stylized sun. An old Mithraic altar, where young bulls had been sacrificed, stood on the far side. Beyond it ran a deep cold spring, a small river. Raoul imagined the sacrificed bodies had been dumped into it to be carried away. He had disposed of a few of his own that way, too…those not fed to his dogs.
At the entrance, Raoul shed his leather duster. Beneath the coat, he wore an old rough-spun shirt embroidered with the coiled dragon, the symbol of the Ordinis Draconis, his birthright going back generations.
“Stay, Drakko,” he ordered the dog.
The Bernese mountain dog dropped to its haunches. It knew better than to disobey.
As did the dog’s owner…
Raoul acknowledged the cave’s occupant with a half bow, then proceeded forward.
The Sovereign Grand Imperator of the Court waited for him before the altar, dressed in the black leathers of a motorcycle outfit. Though he was two decades older than Raoul, the man matched his height and breadth of shoulder. He showed no withering of age, but remained stolid and firm of muscle. He kept his helmet in place, visor down.
The leader had entered through the secret back entrance to the Grotto…along with a stranger.
It was forbidden for anyone outside the Court to view the Imperator’s face. The stranger had been blindfolded as an extra precaution.
Raoul also noted the five bodyguards at the back of the cavern, all armed with automatic weapons, the elite guard of the Imperator.
Raoul strode forward, right arm across his chest. He dropped to a knee before the Imperator. Raoul was head of the Court’s infamous adepti exempti, the military order, an honor going back to Vlad the Impaler, an ancient ancestor of the Sauvage family. But all bowed to the Imperator. A mantle Raoul hoped to one day assume for himself.
“Stand,” he was ordered.
Raoul gained his feet.
“The Americans are already under way,” the Imperator said. His voice, muffled by the helmet, was still heavy with command. “Are your men ready?”
“Yes, sir. I handpicked a dozen men. We only await your order.”
“Very good. Our allies have lent us someone to assist on this operation. Someone who knows these American agents.”
Raoul grimaced. He did not need help.
“Do you have a problem with this?”
“No, sir.”
“A plane awaits you and your men at the Yverdon airfield. Failure will not be tolerated a second time.”
Raoul cringed inwardly. He had led the mission to steal the bones in Cologne, but he had failed to purge the sanctuary. There had been
one survivor. One who had pointed in their direction. Raoul had been disgraced.
“I will not fail,” he assured his leader.
The Imperator stared at him, an unnerving gaze felt through the lowered visor. “You know your duty.”
A final nod.
The Imperator strode forward, passing Raoul, accompanied by his bodyguards. He was headed for the castle, taking over the chateau here until the end game was completed. But first Raoul had to finish clearing the mess he had left behind.
It meant another trip to Germany.
He waited for the Imperator to leave. Drakko trotted after the men, as if the dog scented the true power here. Then again, the leader had visited the castle often during the last ten years, when the keys to damnation and salvation had fallen into their laps.
All due to a fortuitous discovery at the Cairo Museum…
Now they were so close.
With his leader gone, Raoul finally faced the stranger. What he saw, he found lacking, and he let his scowl show it. But at least the stranger’s garb, all black, was fitting.
As was the bit of silver decoration.
From the woman’s pendant, a silver dragon dangled.
DAY TWO
5
FRANTIC
JULY 25, 2:14 A.M.
COLOGNE, GERMANY
FOR GRAY, churches at night always held a certain haunted edge. But none more so than this house of worship. With the recent murders, the Gothic structure exuded a palpable dread.
As his team crossed the square, Gray studied the Cologne cathedral, or the Dom, as it was called by the locals. It was lit up by exterior spotlights, casting the edifice into silver and shadow. Most of the western façade was just two massive towers. The twin spires rose close together, jutting up from either side of the main door, only meters apart for most of their lengths until the towers tapered to points with tiny crosses at the tips. Each tier of the five-hundred-foot structures had been decorated with intricate reliefs. Arched windows climbed the towers, all aiming toward the night sky and the moon far above.
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