He stared at the laptop, at Rachel…
No choice.
Suppressing a groan, he wiggled out of his pack and grabbed one item from an inner pocket, palming it.
“Four…”
Gray switched the laptop into dark mode and clicked it closed. If he didn’t live, he would have to trust that the computer would serve as witness to the events down here.
“Three…”
Gray crawled out of the mausoleum but remained hidden. He circled to hide his position.
“Two…”
He ducked back onto the main street.
“One…”
He laced his hands atop his head and stepped into sight. “I’m here. Don’t shoot!”
10:04 P.M.
RACHEL WATCHED Gray march up to them at gunpoint.
From the hard look on Gray’s face, she recognized her error. She had hoped her surrender would buy Gray time to act, to do something to save them, or at least himself. She had not wanted to be the one left alone out in the necropolis, to stand by and watch the others be killed.
And while Kat had given herself up for Monk, the woman had had a rescue plan in place, botched though it may have ended. Rachel, on the other hand, had acted on faith alone, placing all her trust in Gray.
The Dragon Court leader shoved her aside, meeting Gray as he climbed atop the platform. Raoul raised the massive horse pistol, pointing it at Gray’s chest.
“You’ve caused me a hell of a lot of trouble.” He cocked the gun. “And no amount of body armor will stop this slug.”
Gray ignored him.
His eyes were on Monk, Kat…then Rachel.
He parted his fingers atop his head, revealing a matte-black egg, and said one word.
“Blackout.”
10:05 P.M.
GRAY COUNTED on the full attention of Raoul and his men as the flash grenade exploded above his head. With his eyes squeezed closed, the strobing flare still burned through his lids, a crimson explosion.
Sightless, he dropped and rolled to the side.
He heard the thunderous bark of Raoul’s horse pistol.
Gray reached to his boot and pulled free his .40-caliber Glock.
As the strobe ended, Gray opened his eyes.
One of Raoul’s men lay at the foot of the steps, a fist-sized hole through his chest, taking the slug meant for Gray.
Raoul roared and dove off the platform, twisting in midair, shooting blindly back at the platform.
“Down!” Gray yelled.
Major-caliber slugs tore holes through steel.
The others dropped to their knees. Monk’s and Kat’s hands were still secured behind their backs.
Gray rolled and clipped one dazzled gunman in the ankle, toppling him off the platform. He shot another down at the foot of the steps.
He searched for Raoul. For such a giant of a man, he moved fast. Raoul had landed out of sight, but still blasted at them from below, tearing holes through the meshed floor of the platform.
They were sitting ducks.
Gray had no way of judging how long the flash grenade’s effects would last. They had to move.
“Get back!” Gray hissed to the others. “Through the gate!”
Gray fired a volley, covering their retreat, then followed.
Raoul had stopped firing for the moment, reloading. But no doubt he would come at them again with deadly fury.
Shouts arose from deeper in the necropolis. Other gunmen. They were rushing to the aid of their compromised comrades.
What now? He had only one magazine of ammo.
A cry rose behind him.
Gray glanced back. He watched Rachel flailing backward. She must have been half dazzled by the flash bomb. In the darkness, she missed seeing the ramp in front of the tomb and back-stepped into it. She grabbed for Kat’s elbow, trying to stop her fall.
But Kat was equally caught off-guard.
Both women tumbled down the ramp and rolled below.
Monk met Gray’s eyes. “Shit.”
“Down,” Gray said. It was the only shelter. And besides, they had to protect whatever clue lay below.
Monk went first, stumbling with his arms behind his back.
Gray followed as a new barrage began. Chunks of rock were torn from the surface of the tomb. Raoul had reloaded. He meant to keep them away.
Twisting around, Gray’s eyes caught on the green light glowing from one of the two plates attached to the tomb. Still activated. He thought quickly and made a choice. He pointed his pistol and fired.
The slug severed the knot of wires running to the plate. The green light winked out.
Gray ran down the stone ramp, noting the immediate cessation of the trembling in the ground. Both ears popped with a sudden release of pressure. The device had shorted.
Immediately a loud grinding sounded underfoot.
Gray dove forward and landed inside a small cavern at the foot of the ramp, a natural pocket, volcanic in origin, common in the hills of Rome.
Behind him, the ramp swung back up, closing.
Gray rolled to his feet, keeping his gun pointed up. As he had hoped, the device’s activation had opened the tomb, and likewise its deactivation was closing it. Outside, the barrage by Raoul continued, tearing into rock.
Too late, Gray thought with satisfaction.
With a final grate of stone on stone, the ramp sealed above them.
Darkness settled—but it was not complete.
Gray turned.
The others had gathered around a slab of metallic black rock that rested on the floor. It was lit by a tiny pyre of blue flame atop its surface, rising like a small flume of electrical fire.
Gray approached. There was barely room for the four of them to circle it.
“Hematite,” Kat said, identifying the rock from her background in geology. She glanced from the sealed ramp to the slab. “An iron oxide.”
She bent down and studied the silver lines etched into its surface, tiny rivers against a black background, which were illuminated by the blue flames.
As Gray watched, the fire slowly expired, fading to a flicker, then winked out.
Monk drew their attention to a more immediate concern. Another glowing object.
“Over here,” he said.
Gray joined him. Resting in a corner of the blind cavern was a familiar silver cylinder, shaped like a barbell. An incendiary grenade. A timer counted down in the dark.
04:28.
04:27.
Gray remembered one of Raoul’s bodyguards ducking down here after their leader was done taking photographs. He had been planting the bomb.
“Looks like they intended to destroy this clue,” Monk said. He dropped down to one knee, studying the device. “Damn thing’s booby-trapped.”
Gray glanced to the sealed ramp. Maybe Raoul’s barrage a moment ago hadn’t been meant to drive them off—but to trap them.
He stared back to the bomb.
With the fiery star on the hematite slab extinguished, the only light in the cavern glowed from the LCD timer on the incendiary grenade.
04:04.
04:03.
04:02.
10:06 P.M.
VIGOR HAD felt the sudden release. The wash of electrical fire that had been tearing plaster from the cupola dispersed in seconds. Its energy skittered away like ghostly cerulean spiders.
Still, chaos reigned inside the basilica. Few noted the cessation of the fireworks. Half the parishioners had managed to flee to safety, but the logjam at the entrances had slowed further evacuation. The Swiss Guard and Vatican Police were doing their best to assist.
Some people hid under pews. Dozens of other parishioners had been struck by falling plaster and sat with bloody fingers pressed to scalp wounds. They were being helped and consoled by a handful of brave individuals, true Christians.
The Swiss Guard had come to the rescue of the pope. But he had refused to abandon the church, acting as the captain of this sinking ship. Cardinal Spera
remained at his side. They had evacuated out from under the fiery baldacchino and taken shelter in the Clementina Chapel off to the side.
Vigor strode over to join them. He glanced back across the basilica. The chaos was slowly subsiding. Order was being restored. Vigor stared up at the assaulted dome. It had held—whether through the mercy of God or through the engineering genius of Michelangelo.
As Vigor approached, Cardinal Spera broke through the ranks of the Swiss Guard. “Is it over?”
“I…I don’t know,” Vigor said honestly. He had a larger concern.
The bones had been ignited. That was plain.
But what did that mean for Rachel and the others?
A new voice intruded, shouted with familiar command. Vigor turned to find a wide-shouldered, silver-haired man striding toward him, dressed in a black uniform, hat under his arm. General Joseph Rende, family friend and head of the local Parioli Station. Vigor now understood why order was being restored. The Carabinieri had responded in full force.
“What is His Holiness still doing here?” Rende asked Vigor, nodding to the pope, who remained ensconced among a clot of black-robed cardinals.
Vigor had no time to explain. He grabbed the general’s elbow. “We have to get below. To the Scavi.”
Rende frowned. “I just heard word from the station…from Rachel…something about a robbery down there. Then this all happened.”
Vigor shook his head. He wanted to scream his panic, but he spoke firmly and steadily. “Gather as many men as you can. We have to get down there. Now!”
To his credit, the general responded immediately, barking crisp commands. Black-uniformed men swiftly ran up, armed with assault weapons.
“This way!” Vigor said, heading to the sacristy door. The entrance to the Scavi was around back, not far. Still, Vigor could not move fast enough.
Rachel…
10:07 P.M.
GRAY KNELT with Monk. He had freed both his teammates’ wrists with a knife hidden on Kat. Monk had borrowed Gray’s night-vision scopes to aid in his study.
“Are you sure you can’t defuse it?” Gray asked.
“If I had more time…better tools…some goddamn decent light…” Monk glanced to him and shook his head.
Gray watched the timer count down in the darkness.
02:22.
02:21.
Gray gained his feet and stepped to Kat and Rachel on the other side. Kat had been studying the ramp mechanism with the eyes of a trained engineer. She noted Gray’s approach without turning.
“The mechanism is a crude pressure plate,” she said. “Sort of like a deadman’s switch. It takes weight to hold the ramp closed. But lift the weight off and the ramp opens by gears and gravity. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“As well as I can tell, the trigger plate lies under the tomb over our heads.”
“Saint Peter’s tomb?”
Kat nodded and directed Gray to the side. “Here is where they pulled the stabilizing pin after weighing down the plate with the tomb. Once set, the only way to open this ramp is to move Saint Peter’s tomb off the plate. But that didn’t happen when the Dragon Court activated their device.”
“Maybe it did….” Gray pictured the cylinder containing the super-conducting amalgam, how it had levitated. “Kat, do you remember your description of the test done in Arizona—the test on these m-state powders? How, when these superconductors were charged, they weighed less than zero?”
She nodded. “Because the powder was actually levitating the pan it held.”
“I think that’s what happened here. I saw the amalgam cylinder levitate when the device was turned on. What if the field around the amalgam affected the tomb, too, like the pan in the experiment. While not actually lifting the massive structure, it simply made the stone structure weigh less.”
Kat’s eyes widened. “Triggering the pressure plate!”
“Exactly. Does that offer any clue on how to reopen the ramp?”
Kat stared a moment at the mechanism. She slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Not unless we can move the tomb.”
Gray glanced to the timer.
01:44.
10:08 P.M.
VIGOR RUSHED down the spiral stairs that led to the Scavi. He saw no evidence of trespassing. The narrow door appeared ahead.
“Wait!” General Rende said behind him. “Let one of my men go in first. If there are hostiles…”
Vigor ignored him and rushed to the door. He hit the latch. Unlocked. Thank God. He didn’t have a spare key.
His weight struck the door. But it held.
He bounced back, shoulder bruised.
Flipping the latch, he shoved again.
The door refused to budge, as if blocked or bolted on the far side.
Vigor stared back at General Rende.
“Something’s wrong.”
10:08 P.M.
RACHEL STARED unblinking as the timer ticked below one minute. “There must be another way out,” she mumbled.
Gray shook his head against such wishful thinking.
Still, Rachel refused to give up. She may not know engineering, nor the art of defusing a bomb. But she did know Rome’s history. “No bones,” she said.
Gray stared at her as if she had slipped a gear.
“Kat,” she said, “you mentioned that someone had to pull the stabilizing pin when the mechanism was first set, locking the ramp. Right?”
Kat nodded.
Rachel glanced at the others. “Then he would’ve been trapped down here. Where are his bones?”
Kat’s eyes widened.
Gray clenched a fist. “Another way out.”
“I think I just said that.” Rachel pulled a book of matches from one of her pockets. She struck a flame. “All we have to do is find an opening. Some secret tunnel.”
Monk joined them. “Pass those around.”
In seconds, each member held a flickering flame. They searched for some sign of a freshening breeze, a telltale sign of a hidden exit.
Rachel spoke out of nervousness. “Vatican Hill was named after the fortune-tellers that used to gather here. Vates is Latin for ‘seer of the future.’ Like many oracles of the time, they hid in caves like this and voiced prophecies.”
She studied her flame as she searched the wall.
No flicker.
Rachel tried not to glance at the timer, but failed.
00:22.
“Maybe it’s sealed too tight,” Monk mumbled.
Rachel lit a fresh match.
“Of course,” she continued nervously, “most of the oracles were chalatans. Like turn-of-the-century séances, the soothsayer usually had an accomplice hidden in a secret niche or tunnel.”
“Or under the table,” Gray said. He had squatted by the slab of hematite. He held his match low to the ground. His flame flickered, dancing shadows on the walls. “Hurry.”
There was no need to goad them.
00:15.
That was incentive enough.
Monk and Gray grabbed the edge of the slab, bending with their knees. They heaved up, legs straining.
Kay had dropped to her hands and held a match out. “There’s a narrow tunnel,” she said with relief.
“Get inside,” Gray ordered.
Kat waved Rachel down.
Rachel slid feetfirst through the hole, discovering a stone well. She squiggled down its throat. It took no effort with the steep incline. She slid on her butt. Kat followed next, then Monk.
Rachel craned around, counting in her head. Four seconds remained.
Monk braced the slab with his back. Gray dove headfirst between the man’s planted legs.
“Now, Monk!”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Dropping, Monk let the slab’s weight push him into the chute.
“Down! Down!” Gray urged. “Get as much—”
The explosion cut out further words.
Rachel, still hal
f turned, saw a wash of orange flames lick around the edges of the slab, searching for them.
Monk cursed.
Rachel ignored caution and slid down the chute. It grew steeper and steeper. Soon she was bobsledding down a dank tunnel on her rear end, uncontrolled.
Distantly a new noise intruded.
A rumbling rush of water.
Oh no…
10:25 P.M.
FIFTEEN MINUTES later, Gray helped Rachel climb out of the Tiber River. They shivered on the bank. Her teeth chattered. He hugged her close and rubbed her shoulders and back, warming her as best he could.
“I…I’m okay,” she said, but she didn’t move away, even leaned a bit further into him.
Monk and Kat slogged out of the river, wet and muddy.
“We’d better keep moving,” Kat said. “It’ll help offset hypothermia until we can get into dry clothes.”
Gray set out, climbing the bank. Where were they? The escape chute had dumped into an underground stream. Blind, they had had no choice but to hold tight to one another’s belts and follow the flow of the channel, hoping it would dump them somewhere safe.
Gray had felt some stonework as they proceeded, his arm held out to avoid obstacles. Possibly an ancient sewer line or drainage canal. It had emptied into a maze of channels. They had continued following the downward flow, until at last they had reached a glowing pool, plainly illuminated by reflected light from beyond the underground tunnel. Gray had investigated the pool and discovered a short stone passage that emptied into the Tiber River.
The others had followed, and soon they were all back under the stars with a full moon shining down on the river. They had made it.
Monk squeezed river water from his shirtsleeves, glancing back at the channel. “If they had a goddamn back door, why all the business with the Magi bones?”
Gray had considered the same question and had an answer. “No one could find that back door by chance. I doubt I could even find my way back through that maze. These ancient alchemists hid the next clue in such a manner that the seeker not only had to solve the riddle, but also had to have a basic understanding of the amalgam and its properties.”
“It was a test,” Rachel said, shivering in the slight breeze. Clearly she had also pondered this matter. “A trial of passage before you could move onward.”
“I would’ve preferred a multiple choice test,” Monk said sourly.