The Doomsday Key
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Someone had definitely left a message. But what was that message and who had sent it? As of yet, no group had claimed responsibility.
Rachel knew the quickest way to discover the truth was to instigate her own investigation, something with a narrower focus, more surgical than the current chaos generated by the various agencies.
So she had called Gray. Though such a plea for help was awkward on a personal level, she recognized she would need Sigma's global resources if she hoped to discover the truth. She also recognized that she couldn't do this alone. She needed someone she could fully trust. She needed Gray.
But was the call to him more than just professional?
She pushed that last thought aside as she crossed the hospital parking garage. Reaching her small blue Mini Cooper, she climbed inside and set off across Rome. She left the top down, and the freshening breeze helped clear her head, until a trundling tour bus swooped ahead of her, belching fumes.
Rachel swung off the main thoroughfare and wound through smaller streets framed by shops, caf'es, and restaurants. She had been planning to head over to her apartment, to rest and collect her thoughts before tomorrow, but instead her path wound on its own toward the Tiber River. After a few turns, the shining dome of Saint Peter's rose into view on the far bank.
She continued to let traffic funnel her toward her goal. All of Vatican City had been closed to the public since the explosion. Even the pope had been shifted for security reasons to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. But all that failed to halt the flow of tourists and onlookers. If anything, curiosity had thickened the throngs.
Due to the congestion, it took Rachel an extra half hour to find a parking spot. By the time she reached the police barricade that cordoned off the famous square, full night had set in. Saint Peter's Square was usually crowded with the pious and the raucous, but at the moment, it was nearly deserted. Only a few uniformed men patrolled among the columns and in the open piazza. One stood post at the foot of the Egyptian obelisk that rose in the center of the square. They all bore rifles on their shoulders.
Rachel showed her credentials at the barricade.
The policeman frowned. He was middle-aged, thick around the belly, and stood slightly bowlegged. The city police and the militarized carabinieri were not always on the best of terms.
"Why are you here?" he asked brusquely. "Why does this attack concern the Carabinieri Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale?"
It was a fair question. Her agency oversaw the theft of art and the black market trade in antiquities. It had nothing to do with domestic terrorism. She had not been authorized to be here. In fact, due to her connection with one of the victims, she had been specifically warned to keep her distance.
But she had to see the crime scene for herself.
Rachel cleared her throat and pointed forward. "I'm here to catalog and document the site of the explosion, to verify that no art was stolen following the bombing."
"So, secretarial work." His voice rippled with disdain. He added under his breath, "No wonder they sent a woman."
Rachel refused to rise to the bait. She retrieved her credentials. "If you're done, it's late and I have much work to do."
He shrugged and stepped aside, but just barely. She had to brush against him to pass. He leaned into her, pressing, trying to intimidate her with his bulk and size. Rachel knew this game. In an organization that was mostly a male fraternity, she was treated as either a threat or something to be conquered.
Anger flared, momentarily burning through her anxiety and worry. She pushed past the brute, but not before making sure her heel found the man's instep. She ground down hard as she stepped past him.
He barked in surprise and hopped back.
"Scusi," she apologized coldly and continued into the square without looking back.
"Zoccola!" he swore at her.
She ignored him as she crossed the empty piazza. To either side, the encircling arms of Bernini's colonnades embraced her. She found her pace growing quicker as she passed the obelisk and fountains and continued toward the main doors to the basilica. Overhead, the breadth of Michelangelo's dome glowed against the night sky.
Passing between the giant statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul that stood guard before the basilica, she glanced at the inscription below the sword-bearing apostle Paul. In Hebrew, it read, "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." She couldn't read Hebrew, but it had been her uncle Vigor who had taught her the words as a young girl. She took strength from both that message and the memory of her uncle.
With renewed determination, she climbed the steps to the entrance to Saint Peter's. She found the doors unlocked. Crossing the church portico, she passed into the cavernous nave of the basilica. It stretched almost two hundred meters ahead of her. The church was dark except for a scatter of flickering votive candles, and at the far end of the nave the papal altar shone with the glow of portable sodium lamps. Even from here, Rachel made out the crisscross of crime tape.
The explosion took place in the apse, the area behind the main altar. She headed down the center aisle, ignoring the wealth of art, architecture, and history all around her. Her attention was focused on her goal.
Reaching the main altar, she stepped to the edge of the crime scene. At this hour, the area was deserted. Over the past two days, the investigators and experts had gone over the site with their evidence bags, brushes, swabs, tubes, and vials of chemicals. It was already known that the explosive charge was a dense form of heptanitrocubane, a new class of powerful energetics.
A shiver passed through Rachel as she stared down at the scorched marble. It was the only sign left of the actual attack. Even the blood had been cleaned off. But the floor was still marked with tape, displaying splatter patterns and estimating force trajectories of the blast. On the far side of the apse, a chalk outline marked where Father Marco Giovanni's body had come to rest. He was found at the foot of the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter, beneath the alabaster window showing the dove of the Holy Spirit.
Rachel had read the report on the young priest. He'd been a student of her uncle, a fellow Vatican archaeologist. According to the file, he'd spent the past decade in Ireland, researching the roots of Celtic Christianity, studying the early fusion of pagan rituals with the Catholic faith. He concentrated specifically on the mythos surrounding the Black Madonna, a figure often epitomized as the fusion of the pagan Earth Mother with the Virgin Mary.
Why would such an archaeologist be targeted? Or was it random? Had her uncle and his student just been at the wrong place at the wrong time?