Map Of Bones Part 14

Gray took some degree of grim satisfaction that not all had died that b.l.o.o.d.y night. The attackers had made a mistake. They were fallible. Human. He centered himself with this thought. Though the act was demonic, the hand that committed it was as human as any other. Not that there weren't demons in human form.

But humans could be caught and punished.

They reached the raised sanctuary with the slab-marble altar and the tall-backed cathedra, cathedra, the bishop's seat. Vigor and his niece made the sign of the cross. Vigor dropped to one knee, then got up. He led them through a gate in the chancel railing. Beyond the railing, the altar was also marked in chalk, the travertine marble stained. Police tape cordoned off a section to the right. the bishop's seat. Vigor and his niece made the sign of the cross. Vigor dropped to one knee, then got up. He led them through a gate in the chancel railing. Beyond the railing, the altar was also marked in chalk, the travertine marble stained. Police tape cordoned off a section to the right.

Crashed onto the floor, cracking the stone tile, a golden sarcophagus lay on its side. Its top rested two steps down. Gray shrugged off his backpack and lowered to one knee.

The golden reliquary, when whole, plainly formed a miniature church, carved with arched windows and etched scenes done in gold, rubies, and emeralds, depicting Christ's life, from his adoration by the Magi to his scourging and eventual crucifixion.

Gray donned a pair of latex gloves. "This is where the bones were enshrined?"

Vigor nodded. "Since the thirteenth century."

Kat joined Gray. "I see they've already dusted it for prints." She pointed to the fine white powder clinging to cracks and crevices in the reliefs.

"No prints were found," Rachel said.

Monk glanced across the cathedral. "And nothing else was taken?"

"A full inventory was conducted," Rachel continued. "We've already had a chance to interview the entire staff, including the priests."

"I may want to speak to them myself," Gray mumbled, still studying the box.

"Their apartments are across a cloistered yard," Rachel responded, voice hardening. "No one heard or saw anything. But if you want to waste your time, feel free."

Gray glanced up at her. "I only said I may may want to speak to them." want to speak to them."

She met his gaze without shrinking. "And I was under the impression that this investigation was a joint joint effort. If we're going to recheck each other's work at every step, we'll get nowhere." effort. If we're going to recheck each other's work at every step, we'll get nowhere."

Gray took a steadying breath. Only minutes into the investigation, and already he had stepped on jurisdictional toes. He should have interpreted her earlier wariness and trodden more lightly.

Vigor placed a hand on his niece's shoulder. "I a.s.sure you the interrogation was thorough. Among my colleagues, where prudence of tongue often surpa.s.ses good sense, I doubt you'd gain any further details, especially when being interviewed by someone not wearing a clerical collar."

Monk spoke up. "That's all well and good. But can we get back to me?" All eyes turned to him. He wore a crooked grin. "I believe I was asking if anything else was taken."

Gray felt the attention shift from him. As usual, Monk had his back. A diplomat in body armor.

Rachel fixed Monk with her uncompromising gaze. "As I said, nothing was-"

"Yes, thank you, Lieutenant. But I was curious if any other relics are kept here at the cathedral. Any relics that the thieves didn't take." didn't take."

Rachel frowned in confusion.

"I figured," Monk explained, "that what the thieves didn't take may be as informative as what they did." He shrugged.

The woman's face relaxed a touch, contemplating this angle. The anger bled away.

Gray inwardly shook his head. How did Monk do that?

The monsignor answered Monk. "There's a treasure chamber off the nave. It holds the reliquaries from the original Romanesque church that once stood here: the staff and chain of Saint Peter, along with a couple of pieces of the Christ's cross. Also a Gothic bishop's staff from the fourteenth century and a jewel-encrusted elector's sword from the fifteenth."

"And nothing was stolen from the treasure chamber."

"It was all inventoried," Rachel answered. Her eyes remained pinched in concentration. "Nothing else was stolen."

Kat crouched down with Gray, but her eyes were on those still standing. "So only the bones were taken. Why?"

Gray turned his attention to the open sarcophagus. He slipped a penlight from his nearby backpack and examined the interior. It was unlined. Just flat gold surfaces. He noted a bit of white powder sifted over the bottom surface. More latent powder? Bone ash?

There was only one way to find out.

He turned back to his pack and pulled out a collection kit. He used a small battery-powered vacuum to sniff up some of the powder into a sterile test tube.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked.

"If this is bone dust, it may answer a few questions."

"Like what?"

He sat back and examined the test tube. There was no more than a couple grams of gray powder. "We might be able to test the dust for age. Find out if the stolen bones were from someone who lived during Christ's time. Or not. Maybe the crime was to recover the family bones of someone in the Dragon Court. Some old lord or prince."

Gray sealed the test tube and packed the sample away. "I'd also like to get samples of the broken gla.s.s from the security vault. It might give us some answers as to how the device shattered bulletproof gla.s.s. Our labs can examine the crystalline microstructure for fracture patterns."

"I'll get on that," Monk said, slinging off his pack.

"What about the stonework?" Rachel asked. "Or other materials inside the cathedral?"

"What do you mean?" Gray asked.

"Whatever triggered the deaths among the parishioners might have affected the stone, marble, wood, plastic. Something that could not be seen with the naked eye."

Gray had not considered that. He should have. Monk met his eyes and shrugged his brows. The carabiniere lieutenant was proving herself to be more than a pretty package.

Gray turned to Kat to organize a collection methodology. But she seemed preoccupied. From the corner of his eye, he had noted her interest in the reliquary, all but ducking her head inside to investigate. She now crouched on the marble floor, bent over something she was working on.

"Kat-?"

She held up a tiny mink-haired brush. "One moment." In her other hand, she held a small butane pistol-lighter. She squeezed the trigger and a tiny blue flame hissed from the end. She applied the flame to a pile of powder, plainly whisked from the reliquary with the brush.

After a couple seconds, the gray powder melted, bubbling and frothing into a translucent amber liquid. It dribbled over the cold marble and hardened into gla.s.s. The sheen against the white marble was unmistakable.

"Gold," Monk said. All eyes had been drawn to the experiment.

Kat sat back, extinguishing her torch. "The residual powder in the reliquary...it's the same as in the tainted wafers. Monatomic, or m-state, gold."

Gray remembered Director Crowe's description of the lab tests, how the powder could be melted down to a slag gla.s.s. A gla.s.s made of solid gold.

"That's gold?" Rachel asked. "As in the precious metal?"

Sigma had provided the Vatican with cursory information on the tainted wafers, so their bakeries and supplies could be examined for further tampering. Its two spies had also been informed, but plainly they had their doubts.

"Are you sure?" Rachel asked.

Kat was already busy proving her a.s.sertion. She had an eyedropper in hand and dribbled its contents onto the gla.s.s. Gray knew what filled the eyedropper. They had all been supplied it by the labs back at Sigma for just this purpose. A cyanide compound. For years, miners had been using a process called heap leach cyanide recovery to dissolve gold out of old tailings.

Where the drop touched, the gla.s.s etched as if burned by acid. But rather than frosting the gla.s.s, the cyanide carved a trail of pure gold, a vein of metal in gla.s.s. There was no doubt.

Monsignor Verona stared, unblinking, one hand fingering his clerical collar. He mumbled, "And the streets of New Jerusalem will be paved with gold so pure as to be transparent gla.s.s."

Gray glanced quizzically at the priest.

Vigor shook his head. "From the Book of Revelations...don't mind me."

But Gray saw the way the man drew inward, turning half away, lost in deeper thoughts. Did he know more? Gray sensed the priest was not so much holding back as needing time to dwell on something.

Kat interrupted. She had been leaning over her sample with a magnifying lens and an ultraviolet lamp. "I think there might be more than gold here. I can spot tiny pools of silver in the gold."

Gray shifted closer. Kat allowed him to peer through her lens, shadowing the gla.s.s with her hand so the blue sheen of the ultraviolet light better illuminated the sample. The veins of metallic gold did indeed seem pocked with silvery impurities.

"It might be platinum," Kat said. "Remember that the monatomic state occurs not just in gold but any any of the transitional metals on the periodic table. Including platinum." of the transitional metals on the periodic table. Including platinum."

Gray nodded. "The powder might not be pure gold, but a mix of several of the platinum series. An amalgam of various m-state metals."

Rachel continued to stare at the etched gla.s.s. "Could the powder just be from the wearing down of the old sarcophagus? The gold crumbling with age or something?"

Gray shook his head. "The process to turn metallic gold into its m-state is complicated. Age alone won't do this."

"But the lieutenant might be onto something," Kat said. "Maybe the device affected the gold in the reliquary and caused some of the gold to trans.m.u.te. We still have no idea by what mechanism the device-"

"I may have one clue," Monk said, cutting her off.

He stood by the shattered security case, where he had been collecting shards. He stepped to a bulky iron cross resting in a stanchion not far from the case.

"It looks like one of our forensic experts missed a sh.e.l.l," Monk said. He reached out and plucked a hollow casing from beneath the feet of the crucified Christ figure. He took a step back again, held the casing out toward the cross, and let it go. It flew through six inches of air, and with a ping ping, stuck again to the cross.

"It's magnetized," Monk said.

Another ping ping sounded. Louder. Sharper. The cross spun half a turn in its stanchion. sounded. Louder. Sharper. The cross spun half a turn in its stanchion.

For half a second, Gray did not comprehend what had happened.

Monk dove for the altar. "Down!" he screamed.

Other shots rang out.

Gray felt a kick to his shoulder, throwing him off kilter, but his body armor saved him from real injury. Rachel grabbed his arm and yanked him into a row of pews. Bullets chewed wood, sparked off marble and stone.

Kat ducked with the monsignor, shielding him with her body. She took a glancing shot to the thigh, half collapsing, but they fell together behind the altar with Monk.

Gray had only managed a quick glimpse of their attackers.

Men in hooded robes.

A sharp pop sounded. Gray glanced up to see a fist-sized black object arc across the breadth of the church.

"Grenade!" he screamed.

He scooped up his pack and shoved Rachel down the pew. They scrambled low and ran for the south wall.

3:20 A A.M.

MONK BARELY had time to react when Gray yelled. He grabbed Kat and the monsignor and flattened himself against them behind the stone altar. had time to react when Gray yelled. He grabbed Kat and the monsignor and flattened himself against them behind the stone altar.

The grenade hit the far side and exploded, sounding like a mortar blast. A cascade of marble shattered upward and outward, pelting the wooden pews. Smoke rolled and billowed up.

Half deafened by the blast, Monk simply hauled Kat and Vigor to their feet. "Follow me!"

It was death to stay out here in the open. Toss one grenade behind the altar, and they were all hamburger. They needed a more defensible position.

Monk dashed toward the north wall. Behind him, gunfire remained fierce. Gray was striking for the opposite wall. Just as well. Once in position, they could set up a crossfire across the center of the church.

Clear of the altar, Monk pounded across the sanctuary. He aimed for the nearest shelter, spotting a wide wooden door. The gunmen finally noted their escape. Shots spattered against the marble floor, ricocheted off a column, and tore into pews. The shots came from all directions now. More of the a.s.sailants had taken up positions deeper in the church, coming in other doors, cutting off escape, surrounding them.

They needed cover.

Monk yanked his own weapon from its straps. The snub-nosed shotgun. On the fly, he lifted the barrel in the crook of his left elbow and pulled the trigger. Along with the blast, he heard a sharp grunt from several pews away. Accuracy was not necessary with a Scattergun.

Shoving the barrel forward, he took crude aim at the door handle. It was too much to hope it was an exit to the outside, but it would at least get them clear of the central nave. From a few steps away, he pulled the trigger as he heard a faint protest from Monsignor Verona.

But there was no time for debate.

The blast punched a fist-sized hole through the door, taking the entire handle and lock with it. Still running, Monk hit the door. It banged open under his shoulder. He fell inside, followed by Kat and the monsignor. Kat turned, limping, and shoved the door closed.

"No," the priest said.

Monk now understood the reason for his protest.

The vaulted room was the size of a single-car garage. He stared at the gla.s.s cases crowded with old robes and insignia, bits of sculpture. Gold shone from some of the cases.

It was the cathedral's Treasure Chamber.

There was no exit.

Trapped.

Kat took up position, Glock in hand, and peered out the blasted hole. "Here they come."

3:22 A A.M.