The Doomsday Key

  Instead, he listened to this place.

  He allowed himself to slip back in time, to hear the monks’ chanting, the ring of bells in a call to prayers, the silent prayers cast heavenward.

  Here was a sacred place …

  Surrounded by ancient stone columns …

  Then he knew.

  He turned full around once more, his eyes wide. “We’re in a sacred stone ring.”

  A step away, Rachel lowered her camera. “What?”

  He waved an arm around the cloister. “These columns are really no different than the standing stones back in the peat bog.” His excitement grew, his voice breathless. “We’re standing in the middle of a Christian version of a stone ring.”

  Gray rushed to the towering columns and moved from one to the next. Carved out of massive blocks of yellow-gray limestone, each one had to weigh several tons, truly no different from the standing bluestones of England.

  On his fourth column, he found it. It was faint, no more than a shadow worn into the surface of the limestone. He ran his fingers over the mark, tracing the circle and the cross.

  “It’s the symbol,” he said.

  The guide had noted his sudden attention. She joined him. “Magnifique. You’ve discovered one of the consecration crosses.”

  He turned to her for elaboration.

  “During the Middle Ages, it was traditional to sanctify a church or its property with such symbols. Unlike the crucifix that represents Christ’s suffering, these crossed circles represent the apostles. It was typical to adorn a sacred place with them. They always numbered—”

  “Twelve,” Gray finished for her. He pictured the standing stones in the peat bog. There had been twelve crosses there, too.

  “That’s correct. They mark the blessings of the twelve apostles.”

  And maybe something much older, he added silently.

  Gray moved through an archway into the covered walkway. He wanted to examine the far sides of the columns. The standing stones back in England had spirals on their reverse sides.

  He searched quickly along the cloister. The others joined him. He found no markings on the inner surfaces of the columns. By the time he had circled all the way back to where he started, his excitement had waned. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was reading too much into the symbolism.

  The woman noted his determined search. “So you’ve heard the local legend,” she said with a slight scoffing tone. “I think half the reason the cloister still stands is because of that mystery.”

  Wallace wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “What mystery are you talking about, my dear lady?”

  The woman smiled for the first time, slightly smitten by the older professor. Also, Wallace had been sticking close to her, asking lots of questions, which probably contributed to the attraction.

  “It’s a legend only told locally. A story passed from one generation to the next. But I’ll admit, it is an oddity.”

  Wallace returned her smile, encouraging her to continue.

  She pointed to the courtyard. “As I said before, it’s typical to sanctify a church with twelve consecration crosses. But here there are only eleven.”

  Surprised, Gray stepped back out into the garden. He mentally kicked himself for not being thorough enough. He had never thought to count the number of symbols. He had assumed there were twelve, like the standing stones.

  “The story goes that the missing twelfth and final consecration cross of Clairvaux Abbey guards a great treasure. People have been looking for it for ages, scouring the grounds here, even searching the outlying barns. But it’s all just silly légendes. Absurdité. Most likely the twelfth cross had been carved inside the abbey itself, joining the blessing out here to the church.”

  And maybe that link still existed, Gray thought.

  The guide checked her watch. “I’m sorry, but we must end our tour here. Perhaps if you come tomorrow, I could show you more.”

  This last offer was mostly directed at Wallace Boyle.

  “Oh, I’m sure we’ll be back,” he promised her.

  Gray glanced at Seichan to see if she thought that might still be possible. She had sidled next to him. With the tour ending, she had grown visibly tense.

  Before he could question her, a loud siren blared, jarring and strident. They all searched around. What was going on?

  The armed guard moved closer. Rachel turned to their guide, checking her face to see if this was a normal occurrence.

  “We must find cover,” Seichan said at Gray’s ear. Her voice was urgent, but she looked almost relieved, as though she had been waiting for something to happen.

  “What’s going on?”

  Before she could answer, a new noise intruded. Past the siren, a heavy thud-thud reverberated, felt in the gut. He looked to the sky as two helicopters shot into view over the wooded ridgeline. The pair rose high, then tipped their noses and dove straight toward the prison.

  From the sirens, Gray knew those two did not belong in this airspace.

  The prison was under attack.

  3:22 P.M.

  Krista sat next to the pilot as he angled the helicopter toward the prison below. Even through the muffling headphones and the roar of the rotors, she made out the scream of the sirens below. The facility had picked up their approach, tried to hail them, but without proper call signs radioed back, the prison had sounded the alarm.

  Ahead of her, the first Eurocopter swept over the prison grounds. From its belly, barrels dropped. They tumbled below and crashed with fiery explosions. The concussions cut through the chaos, booming like thunder.

  Krista wanted as much mayhem as possible. She had been informed of the security protocol at Clairvaux Prison. In case of emergency, the facility would isolate the abbey ruins, both to protect a national treasure and to secure any tourists trapped there.

  Like now.

  The pilot from the lead helicopter radioed to her. “Targets have been spotted below. Sending coordinates.”

  She glanced at her bird’s pilot. He nodded. He’d gotten the coordinates and banked the helicopter hard to the right. They were carrying ten men aboard their bird. Drop lines were being readied at both hatches. Once over the ruins, the men would bail out, slide down the lines, and secure the targets below.

  Krista would accompany that first assault team.

  She intended to handle this personally.

  After the prison was bombed and burning, the other helicopter would unload its men in a second wave. The two birds would continue their patrol, ready and waiting to evacuate on her orders.

  Leaning forward, Krista stared below. The coordinates marked a massive square of stone ruins around a large garden. The space was wide enough to land a helicopter inside if necessary.

  The pilot came on the line. “Waiting your mark,” he said.

  She lifted a fist and pointed her thumb down.

  Time to end this.

  3:24 P.M.

  Gray sheltered with the others under the cloister’s covered walkway. His ears rang from the blaring sirens. His head pounded from the concussions. Fountains of fire and smoke erupted all around them.

  Gray understood the tactic of firebombing the prison.

  Someone wants us trapped.

  And he could guess who.

  Seichan’s bosses wanted them on a shorter leash. Had she informed them about how close Gray’s team was to finding the key? Was this how they wanted to play their endgame?

  Still, Seichan looked just as angry. Apparently she hadn’t been informed of this change in plans.

  “What are we going to do?” Rachel asked.

  He couldn’t answer. He knew there were many questions buried in that one. How were they going to get out of here? What about the promised antidote to her poisoning? Without the Doomsday key in hand, they had no bargaining chip.

  They needed that key.

  Just before the assault, something had begun to gel in Gray’s mind. A vague idea, the whisper of a thought. But the sirens and bo
mbs had blown it all away.

  Something about the missing twelfth consecration cross.

  Out of the smoke, a helicopter swooped into view. Its shadow fell over the yard as it skimmed to a hovering position. Rotorwash buffeted the enclosed space, flattening the flowers and shaking the bushes.

  Gray and the others had nowhere to run.

  As he faced the garden, he suddenly knew the answer. There was no calculation, no piecing it together. It formed fully in his head.

  Time slowed to a crawl.

  He remembered his fixation with the old abbey map at the Troyes library. He knew what had nagged at him. There had been a pagan cross inscribed on that very page. Back at the library, he had missed it, failed to recognize it in that context. In his mind’s eye, he saw it clearly now.

  The pagan cross represented the earth quartered into its primary corners: east, west, north, south.

  Just like the map’s compass.

  Gray stared into the garden—at the decoration that graced the middle of the yard. The compass was an ornate brass construction that rested on a waist-high stone plinth. The compass was sculpted with elaborate frills, each of the four cardinal directions clearly marked, along with many gradations in between.

  The twelfth consecration cross—though disguised in this new incarnation—had been in plain sight all along.

  If Gray had any doubt, he reminded himself of one other thing. The compass stood in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by stones marked with sacred symbols. Such a spot was the most hallowed ground to the ancients who raised those old stones.

  Gray knew what he had to do.

  He swung to the guard and pointed to the hovering helicopter as its hatches were thrown open. “Fire!”

  But the guard looked terrified. He was young, likely new, assigned to babysit the tour groups. He was out of his league.

  “Well, if you’re not going to …” Kowalski grabbed the gun out of the guard’s stunned hands. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

  He sprang up, aimed, and began shooting at the helicopter. Men dove away from the open hatch. One drop line tumbled loose and writhed as the helicopter yanked up and off to the side, caught by surprise at the gunfire.

  Gray knew he had moments to confirm his theory.

  “Kowalski, you hold off that bird! Everyone else, with me!”

  Gray ran into the garden and headed toward the compass. “Get around it!” he ordered as he gripped the large brass N.

  Wallace, Rachel, and Seichan manned the other cardinal directions.

  “We have to turn it! Like at the tomb on the island. Make it twist like a spiral!”

  Gray dug his toes into the lawn, planted his shoulder, and pushed. The others did the same. Nothing happened. It wouldn’t budge. Was he wrong? Were they turning it in the right direction?

  Then suddenly it gave way. The entire compass lurched, rotating around its brass hub.

  Rifle shots blasted from Kowalski’s position.

  Return fire peppered down from above, concentrating on the shooter. Rounds chewed into the column where Kowalski had taken shelter. He was forced to duck away.

  The helicopter swung back toward the yard. The beat of the rotors pounded, deafening them.

  “Don’t stop!” Gray yelled to the others.

  The mechanism was ancient. Turning the compass was like drilling into sand: grating, stubborn, and coarse.

  The helicopter steadied into position above them.

  Ropes dropped on all sides.

  3:27 P.M.

  “Don’t shoot!” Krista screamed as one of the men aimed at the four below. “I want that group alive.”

  At least for now.

  The soldiers’ bloodlust was up. One of them had taken a stray round to the face and lay dead on the cabin floor. Whoever was firing on them knew how to handle a rifle. She’d give him that much.

  She pointed to the far side of the cloister, to where the sniper had taken roost. She clapped a gunman with a grenade launcher.

  “Take him out.”

  There was nowhere the bastard could hide.

  Especially from a thermobaric grenade.

  Kowalski sprinted.

  He knew from the sudden cessation of gunfire that something much worse was about to drop on his head. At least the old lady and the guard had already fled the cloister when the firefight first started. They’d wanted no part of this fight.

  Typical French …

  The only warning Kowalski got was a sharp whistling that cut through everything else. He glanced back—so he didn’t see the hole.

  One second he had stones under his feet, then nothing but open air.

  He fell headlong down a narrow set of steps.

  A fiery explosion ripped past his heels. A blast wave kicked him in the rear and catapulted him down the rest of the steps.

  He landed in a crumpled, dazed pile at the mouth of a dark tunnel.

  Deafened, with his nose bleeding and his backside smoking, Kowalski realized two things. The steps hadn’t been here a moment ago. And worse, he knew where he must be.

  3:28 P.M.

  Even with his ears ringing from the grenade blast, Gray heard his name bellowed, followed by a blistering string of curses.

  “Run!” Gray yelled to the others.

  He grabbed Rachel; Seichan snagged Wallace. They all fled from under the helicopter, dancing through the whipping ropes. The blast wave from the grenade had burst outward with a fiery slap. Even the helicopter had bobbled, which bought them just enough time to sprint for the walkway.

  A large chunk of the cloister was now a blackened, smoky ruin.

  Seconds before, Gray had watched Kowalski barreling away from the blast zone. Then the big man had suddenly fallen straight out of view, as if he’d tumbled down a well—no, not a well.

  “Get your ass over here!”

  Only one thing made Kowalski sound that scared.

  The four of them ducked into the walkway. Gray spotted it immediately. A narrow staircase had opened in the floor. So he’d been right. Spinning the compass had unlocked the hidden passageway.

  “Hurry,” he said.

  Behind them, the helicopter had stabilized and men in combat gear zipped down the lines. He heard the boots hitting the ground as he reached the stairs.

  “Down, down, down,” he urged.

  The others piled through the opening. Gray went last. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a soldier leveling a rifle. He ducked. A spray of bullets passed over his head and rebounded off the wall. Ricochets pelted like bee stings. He took one to the skull that felt like it cracked bone.

  It could have been worse.

  Only rubber bullets, he realized as he hurried below. Nonlethal. Someone wanted them captured alive.

  He tumbled into a lower passage.

  Kowalski yelled back to him. “There’s a lever over here! Should I pull it?”

  “Yes,” they all shouted in unison.

  Gray heard a scrape of metal. The stairs began rising behind them. Each step was really a slab of rock, staggered to make a staircase. Each slab rose vertically to reseal the opening above.

  Darkness fell over them completely.

  A scratch of flint sounded, and a small flame flickered to life. It illuminated Seichan’s face as she held up her lighter.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  Gray knew they only had one chance. Rachel’s life—all their lives—hung on one hope. “We must find that key.”

  30

  October 14, 3:33 P.M.

  Clairvaux, France

  Krista stalked across the cloister’s garden. The day had turned to twilight as smoke choked the sky, occasionally stirred by a passing helicopter.

  Throughout the prison grounds, hundreds of fires burned. Sirens continued to blare, punctuated by gunshots and men’s screams. The prison guards had enough to manage with loose prisoners, raging fires, and utter chaos. They wouldn’t bother with the ruins for the moment. But to ensure their con
tinuing privacy, she had the second assault team set up a perimeter, guarding all access points to the area. Overhead, the helicopters with their gun mounts added air support.

  An especially loud explosion drew Krista’s gaze to the west. A fresh curl of flame shot into the sky. An exploded fuel tank off by the small heliport, she guessed. The area had been one of their first targets.

  Krista had wanted the prison as isolated as possible, for as long as possible. Before the strike, she had the major phone and communication trunks severed. She had the one road out to the prison planted with mines. Eventually a response would reach here, but she planned on being gone before that happened.

  Or so she hoped.

  Her second-in-command met her in the walkway. He was a hulking black Algerian named Khattab. He scowled and shook his head. “Still no contact with the targets.”

  She had a team scouring beyond the ruins of the cloister. A soldier had shot at one from the group; from the description, it had been Grayson Pierce. But where did they all go? The shooter’s report made no sense. He had shown her where the others had vanished. But Krista found no window or door. The walls were solid. Had they slipped through the shadows and escaped?

  So far they had not been spotted again.

  All they’d found were a scared guard and an old woman out in the ruins. She had questioned them, but they didn’t know anything.

  She stood in the walkway with Khattab and stared at the brass compass in the middle of the garden. They’d been doing something over there when her team flew in.

  She pointed. “Get two men on that compass. See if there is anything unusual.”

  “And what about the targets? Do our orders remain the same?”

  “I have new orders.” She had hoped to secure the Doomsday key, but she recognized that was one brass ring beyond her reach. “Shoot to kill.”

  As she stepped away, her boot heel skidded on some sand. It drew her eye to the stones underfoot. She knelt down. She had missed it before in the shadows, but a sandy line of grated limestone delineated a rectangle on the floor. Half-hidden behind a pillar, the location was where the shooter had seen their escaping targets vanish.