The Doomsday Key
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6:12 A.M.
Painter knew Karlsen was near the breaking point. The man's eyes were glassy, his voice a hoarse whisper. He clearly struggled with the depth of betrayal perpetrated against him. But the Guild were masters of manipulation and coercion, of infiltration and deception, of brutality and violence.
Even Sigma had once fallen prey to them.
But Painter offered no solace to the man.
Karlsen slowly answered his question. "Father Giovanni approached our corporation two years ago to fund his research. He believed that the mummified bodies found in the peat bog were the victims of an old war between Christians and pagans. That the fungus was used as a weapon to corrupt crops and wipe out villages. And this secret war was buried in code in a medieval text called the Domesday Book. His supporting documents were impressive. He believed a counteragent existed to the spread of the fungus, a cure, a way of eradicating it from land and body."
"And you financed the search for this counteragent?"
"We did. What could it harm? We thought he might turn up some new chemical that we could exploit. But about the time we began to suspect that our new crop was unstable, we heard that Father Giovanni had made a huge breakthrough. He had found an artifact that he was sure would lead to the location of this lost key."
Painter understood. "Such a counteragent, if it existed, would solve all your problems."
"I had Krista interview him to judge the validity of his claim and to secure the artifact." Ivar closed his eyes. "God forgive me."
"But the priest ran."
Karlsen nodded. "I don't know what happened. Whatever he told her over the phone drew the full attention of her organization. And after the disaster in Africa, we had to secure that artifact. If there was even the remotest possibility of a counteragent..."
"But you lost it. Father Giovanni was killed."
"I never learned the exact details. After the mess in Africa, I had more immediate fires to put out. I left the matter to the Guild to pursue, to see if there truly was any validity to Father Giovanni's claim."
"And how did that go?"
He shook his head. "The last I heard from Krista was that another team was still searching for the key."
That had to be Gray, Painter thought.
"Krista assured me that the Guild had a mole on that team."
Painter went cold at his words.
If the Guild had infiltrated Gray's team-
He struggled for any way to help them, to get word to them. But he didn't even know if they were dead or alive. Either way, there was nothing he could do for them.
They were on their own.
Chapter 28
October 14, 12:18 P.M.
Troyes, France
A library was an unlikely spot to plan a prison break.
But they had to start somewhere.
Gray shared a desk with Rachel. Stacks of books were piled around them. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the modern library in the city of Troyes. Computer stations dotted rows of tables in the research room.
Despite its glass-and-steel architecture, the library was ancient. Founded in a convent in 1651, it remained one of the oldest libraries in all of France. Its main treasure was a collection of manuscripts from the original Abbey of Clairvaux. After the French Revolution, the entire abbey library had been moved to Troyes for safekeeping.
And for good reason.
"It was Napoleon who turned the abbey into a prison," Gray said, pushing back a book and stretching a kink out of his neck.
Since driving from Paris, they had spent all morning in the library, researching the abbey and its saints. They'd had little sleep, only what they could manage in the airport or on the short plane hop from England.
With the clock ticking, Gray faced two challenges: how to reach the ruins that lay at the heart of Clairvaux Prison and what to look for once they got there. With much still to learn, he had no choice but to assign tasks and split everyone up.
Gray accompanied Rachel and Wallace to Troyes. The town lay only eleven miles from the prison. Its library contained the greatest collection of historical documents about the abbey. To expedite their research, Gray divided their tasks. Rachel concentrated on Saint Malachy's life, death, and entombment at the old abbey. Wallace was off with a clerk to the restricted Grand Salon of the library to review original documents concerning Saint Bernard, the founder of the monastic order and a close friend of Malachy's.
Gray concentrated on digging up every architectural detail he could find on the original abbey. He had a stack of books equal to Rachel's. Open before him was a text that dated to 1856. It contained a map of the original abbey precinct.
A tall outer wall surrounded the property, interrupted by watchtowers. Inside, the grounds were divided into two areas. The eastern ward held gardens, orchards, even a few fishponds. To the west spread barns, stables, slaughterhouses, workshops, and guest lodgings. Between them, secured behind its own inner walls, stood the abbey itself, including the church, cloisters, lay buildings, and kitchens.
With the book open before him, Gray studied the nineteenth-century map.
Something kept drawing him back to this picture, but the more he concentrated, the less sure he became. For the past half hour, he had used the map to pinpoint the few surviving structures of the abbey. All that still stood were a couple of barns, a few sections of walls, a nicely preserved lay building, and the ruins of the original cloister.
It was the latter-le Grand Clo^itre-that most intrigued Gray.
The Grand Cloister lay immediately next to where the old abbey once stood. And it was beneath that church that Saint Malachy had been buried.
But was he still there?
That was another worry. According to Rachel, after the French Revolution, the tomb of Saint Malachy disappeared from the historical record.
Did that mean something?
Which brought Gray back around to a question that still nagged him.
"Why did Napoleon turn the abbey into a prison?"
Wallace had returned and overheard the question. "It's not that unusual," he explained as he sat down. "Many old abbeys from the Middle Ages were converted into penal facilities. With their thick walls, towers, and monastic buildings, they were an easy conversion."