Текст книги "The Judas Strain"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

Before Painter could respond further, his aide appeared at his door, knocking softly. Painter waved for him to speak.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Director. But I’ve another call holding. On your private line. From Rome. Monsignor Verona. He seemed quite urgent.”

Painter’s brow furrowed. He spoke into the phone. “Lisa—”

“I heard. You’re busy. Once I coordinate with Monk, we’ll conference with Jennings on the situation here. Get back to work.”

“Stay safe.”

“I will,” she said. “And I love you, too.”

The line blinked off.

Painter took a breath to collect himself, then twisted around to hit the button on his private line. Why was Monsignor Verona calling?Painter knew Commander Pierce had been romantically involved with the monsignor’s niece, but that had ended almost a year ago.

“Monsignor Verona, this is Painter Crowe.”

“Director Crowe, thank you for taking my call. I’ve been trying to reach Gray for the past two hours, but there’s been no answer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there a message you’d like me to forward?”

Painter didn’t bother to explain about the current situation. Though Monsignor Verona had helped Sigma in the past, the matter here was on a need-to-know basis, already coded in black.

“There’s been an incident here at the Vatican…in the Secret Archives precisely. I’m not entirely sure of its import, but it strikes me as a message or warning. One left for both myself and perhaps Commander Pierce.”

Painter stood up and circled around his desk to his chair. “What sort of message?”

“Someone broke into a vault here last week and painted the symbol for the Royal Dragon Court on the floor.”

Painter sank into his seat, disturbed by the coincidence. Two years ago, Gray and Monsignor Verona had teamed up to root out and destroy a brutal sect of the Dragon Court. They had succeeded – but not without help, requiring an alliance with an enemy, an operative from the Guild.

Seichan.

And now the assassin was here.

Painter was not one to swallow coincidences easily. Not in the past, and certainly not now. If nothing else, his stint as director of Sigma had honed his edge of paranoia to a razor’s sharpness.

“Did anyone get a look at this trespasser?” he asked.

“Briefly. Whoever it was, they came alone. Slipped past all of Vatican security. We captured only a shadowy image on one security camera. This was no casual thief. Only one person I know could have crossed into the inner sanctum and out again with no more than a shadow captured. The same someone connected to our joint involvement with the Dragon Court in the past.”

So it seemed the monsignor was no less suspicious than Painter.

“And the dragon painting on the floor,” Vigor continued. “It was plainly a message, perhaps even a reminder of a debt owed.”

“You believe it was the Guild operative, Seichan,” he said. “The one who helped you defeat the Dragon Court?”

“Exactly. If we could find her, ask her—”

Painter knew that any further secrets would only hamper discovering the true threat. It seemed the need-to-know status of the situation had just extended to Rome.

“Seichan is here,” he said, cutting the monsignor off. “We have her in custody.”

“What?”

He quickly related the night’s return of the assassin, dropping out of nowhere, bloodied and on the run.

Vigor was stunned for a moment – then spoke in a rush. “She must be interrogated. If for no other reason than to ask her why she painted the message on the floor.”

“We’ll do that. Once she’s treated, we’ll conduct a thorough interview. Behind very stout bars.”

“You don’t understand. There’s something larger going on. Possibly larger than the Guild itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The dragon symbol was painted around an ancient inscription carved into the floor of the archive vault. Carved possibly back when the Vatican was first being built, back to the time of Galileo. The symbols are the characters from what some conjecture might be the most ancient of all written languages. Older than proto-Hebrew. A writing that may even predate mankind.”

Painter heard the anxiety in the other’s voice. “What do you mean predatemankind? How could that be?”

Vigor answered him.

Painter kept the shock out of his reaction, along with his disbelief. He ended the call with a deep frown. The monsignor’s assertion was plainly impossible, but true or not, he immediately understood the monsignor’s distress. They needed to question Seichan as soon as possible – before anything else happened to her.

Painter hurriedly confirmed ETA on the medical team, then had his aide patch him through to the guard stationed at the safe house.

Who was on duty out there?

He called for Brant to contact security and have them forward video feed from the safe house to his office plasma screens.

As Painter waited, Vigor’s final words echoed through him.

Those symbols…carved into the stone…

Painter shook his head.

Impossible.

…they are the language of the angels.

1:04 A.M.

Gray sped down Greenwich Parkway into the exclusive Foxhall Village subdivision. He reached the end and made a left turn onto a tree-lined street. He slowed. He let the Thunderbird’s idling engine carry him forward. The safe house appeared ahead, a two-story red-brick Tudor with forest-green shutters, a match to the woods of Glover-Archibold Park upon which the home backed.

With the top down, he could smell the damp forest.

Nearing the house, he noted the front porch light was on, as was a lamp in the upper corner window.

The all-clear sign.

He turned and bumped into the driveway, earning a groan from their injured passenger.

“Where are we?” his mother asked.

Gray braked under an overhanging porte cochere on the left side of the house. A side door to the house lay steps away. He had attempted repeatedly to get his parents to vacate the car, but with every hospital and medical center they passed, they only became more stubborn. Or at least his mother did. His father remained at the same level of muleheadedness.

“This is a safe house,” he said, seeing little reason to dissemble now. “Medical help should be on its way. Stay put for now.”

Gray cut the engine and climbed out.

On the far side of the car, the side door to the house opened. A large shadowy figure filled the doorway. A hand rested on a holstered weapon at his hip. “You Pierce?” the man asked, gruff and short, eyeing the additional passengers with suspicion.

“Yes.”

The figure stepped out into the light. He was an ape of a man, thick-limbed, stubble-cut brown hair. He was dressed in military fatigues. Not exactly keeping a low profile.

“Name’s Kowalski. I have Crowe on the horn for you.” He raised his other hand and held out a cell phone.

Gray headed around the back of the car. He had not been looking forward to this conversation with the director, to explain his blown cover. It was not exactly covertto have your parents tagging along.

Even the guard stationed here seemed baffled by the elderly pair sharing the open convertible. He studied the new arrivals with his brows bunched into a knot over his forehead. He scratched his chin.

“Three fifty-two?” he asked as Gray came around.

Gray could not fathom what he meant.

His father answered from the backseat. “No, it’s a three-ninetyblock. Rebuilt V8 from a Ford Galaxie.”

“Sweet ride.”

Plainly the guard hadn’t been studying his parents, only the car.

Seichan stirred in the backseat, perhaps somehow noting the lack of wind and motion. She struggled weakly to sit up.

“Can you help get her inside?” Gray asked the guard. He noted the lower half of a U.S. Navy anchor on the man’s right biceps as he accepted the phone. Ex-military. No surprise there. If there had been a picture under jarheadin the dictionary, it would’ve been this man’s mug shot.

His mother opened the passenger door. “Where’s that medical help?” She seemed to find little hope in the large form of the guard, even clutching her purse a bit tighter to her side.

Gray held up a palm, asking for patience.

“Ma’am,” Kowalski said, and pointed to the kitchen. “There’s a medkit on the kitchen table. Morphine stabs and smelling salts. I’ve laid out a suture pack.”

His mother eyed the man with a more studied appraisal. “Thank you, young man.”

With a more withering glance in Gray’s direction, his mother headed inside.

Stepping out of the way, Gray spoke into the phone. “Director Crowe, Commander Pierce here.”

“Is that your mother who just got out of the car?”

How the hell…?

Gray searched up and spotted the video camera hidden under the porte cochere. It must be sending a live feed to Central Command. He could feel heat rise at his collar.

“Sir—”

“Never mind. Explain later. Gray, we’ve intel out of Rome, related to our new arrival. How is the prisoner holding up?”

Gray eyed the back of the convertible. The guard and his father were discussing the best way to move Seichan’s limp form. He noted the fresh bloom of blood in the center of her belly wrap.

“She’s going to need immediate attention.”

“Help should be there any minute.”

The trundle of a heavy vehicle sounded. Gray swung around. A large black van turned and headed down the street.

“I think they’re here,” he said with a relieved sigh.

The van reached the house, shifted to the curb, and braked at the foot of the driveway. Gray felt a twinge of unease, hating to be blocked in, but he recognized the van. It was Sigma’s medical response team. The camouflaged ambulance was based on the same design as the vehicle that accompanied the president, capable of handling emergency surgery if necessary.

“Give me an update as soon as their evaluation is over,” Painter said. The director must have spotted the van also.

The side doors of the van shoved open. Three men and a woman, all in surgical scrubs and matching loose black bomber jackets, exited the van with coordinated skill. Two men yanked a stretcher, legs unfolding beneath it. They followed the third man and the woman, who strode forward to meet Gray. The man held his hand out.

“Dr. Amen Nasser,” he said.

Gray shook his hand, appreciating the cool, dry grip. Calm and in control. The doctor could be no older than thirty, yet he carried himself with firm authority. His complexion was the hue of polished mahogany, unlike the woman, whose skin was more the color of warm honey.

Gray studied her.

Though of Asian heritage, the woman plainly sought to downplay it. She had shaved her head to a crew cut and bleached her remaining hair an ice blond. Entwining tattoos also circled her wrists in a Celtic pattern. While such severity had never appealed to Gray before, there remained something strangely seductive about her. Perhaps it was the emerald of her eyes, a feature that needed no other embellishment. Then again, it may have been the way she moved, leonine, muscular, balanced. Like much of Sigma, she must have had some military training.

The woman nodded to Gray. No introduction was offered.

“I’ve been informed of the situation,” the team leader continued, his words precise, plainly foreign-born, with a trace of an accent. “I’ll ask you all to stand back and let us work. We will transfer the patient to the surgical bay inside the van. I will send out Anni with a status report shortly.” He finally acknowledged the woman.

The other two men rushed past with the stretcher. The doctor followed, while Anni remained where she was, leaning on a hip.

The cell phone in Gray’s hand began to vibrate as he stepped aside. The team leader spoke rapidly. Gray finally recognized the accent of the team leader.

Dr. Amen Nasser.

He was Egyptian.

1:08 A.M.

Painter stood in front of the wall monitor directly behind his desk. The plasma screens on the other two walls displayed live video of the first and second floor of the safe house. The one behind his desk pixilated with digital feed from the exterior camera.

“Pick up the phone, Gray!” he yelled at the screen.

The controls for the cameras were down a floor in main security. Painter had no way of swiveling the camera. He had seen the med van park at the edge of the screen, but it wasn’t until a second ago that he had spotted the pair who had stepped into view in front of Gray.

Neither of them worked for Sigma.

Painter knew all the personnel.

The van might be Sigma’s, but the team inside was not.

A trap.

On the screen, Gray flipped open the cell and raised it to his ear. “Director Crowe—?”

Before Painter could answer, a thin foot kicked out and smashed the phone against Gray’s head. With a snap of cellular crackle, he went down, caught off guard.

“Gray…”

The image on the screen suddenly jumped – then went black.

1:09 A.M.

The first shot took out the camera.

Head ringing, Gray heard the muffled cough and splintering shatter. He twisted around.

“What the hell?” his father bellowed as the camera’s debris rained down on him. He was still crouched in the backseat with Seichan.

The guard, Kowalski, was on the other side of the car. He froze like a deer in headlights, a grizzled two-hundred-pound deer. But the pistol at the back of his neck was a strong deterrent against moving.

The orderlies had shoved the stretcher into the side yard. One held a gun on Kowalski, the other waved for Gray’s father to get out of the car.

“Stay where you are,” a harsh voice warned behind him.

Gray glanced over his shoulder. The woman, Anni, held a black Sig Sauer at his face, standing out of reach of a leg sweep, but close enough that she would not miss a head shot.

Recognizing this, Gray faced the Thunderbird.

Dr. Nasser carried a matching pistol in his hand.

Gray somehow knew that it was the weapon that had shot Seichan.

Nasser came around to Gray’s father’s side. He searched down to where Seichan lay sprawled. He shook his head sadly, then pointed to the gunman on that side. “Get the old man out of the car. See if the bitch has the obelisk, then drag her to the van.”

Obelisk?

Gray watched as his father was manhandled out of the backseat. He prayed his father would not aggravate the situation. But it proved unnecessary. Plainly stunned, his father offered no resistance.

“She doesn’t have it,” the man in the backseat finally said, straightening up.

Nasser stepped to the car and scanned the interior himself. He did not find what he was looking for. The only sign of consternation at this lack of discovery was a single crinkle between his eyes.

He stepped away from the car and faced Gray.

“Where is it?”

Gray fixed the man with a steady stare. “Where is what?”

He sighed. “Surely she told you, or you wouldn’t be making such an effort for an enemy.” Without turning, he signaled the man who had searched Seichan. The man pressed his pistol against his father’s forehead.

“I don’t ask questions a second time. You probably don’t know that. So I’ll give you this moment of leeway.”

Gray swallowed, noting the raw fear in his father’s eyes.

“The obelisk,” Gray said. “The one you mentioned. She had it with her, but it broke when she crashed her bike at the house. She passed out before she could say anything about it. For all I know, it’s still there.”

And it might be.

He had forgotten about it in the rush to deal with Seichan.

Where hadit gone?

The man kept his eyes fixed on Gray. He studied him with a calculating and steady gaze.

“I think you’re actually telling me the truth, Commander Pierce.”

Still, the Egyptian signaled his gunman.

The shot was deafening.

1:10 A.M.

A minute ago Painter had noted movement on the plasma screen to the left. The interior video cameras of the safe house were still working. He spotted Mrs. Harriet Pierce crouched behind the kitchen table.

The attackers seemed unaware she was hiding inside.

No one except Gray had known he was coming to the safe house with an extra two passengers. The van had arrived afterGray’s mother had gone inside. With the one guard stationed at the house immobilized, they had assumed the scene was locked down.

Painter knew it was his only advantage.

He called for a silent alarm to be raised at the house and a line opened. He watched the amber light beside the house phone blink and blink.

See the flashing light,he willed her.

Whether it was the alarm light or the simple instinct to call for help, Harriet crept over to the kitchen phone, reached up, and pulled the receiver to her ear.

“Don’t talk,” he said quickly. “It’s Painter Crowe. Don’t let them know you are inside. I can see you. Nod if you understand.”

She nodded.

“Good. I have help coming. But I don’t know if they’ll reach you in time. The attackers must know this, too. They will be cruel and quick. I need you to be crueler. Can you do this?”

A nod.

“Very good. There should be a pistol in the drawer below the phone.”

1:11 A.M.

The gunshot was deafening.

Deafening.

Not a silencer like before.

Gray knew the truth the fraction of a second before the gunman holding a weapon to his father’s head fell to the side, half his skull splattering against the front quarter panel of the Thunderbird.

He knew the shooter.

His mother.

She was Texas bred, raised by an oilman who worked the same fields as Gray’s father. Though his mother constantly petitioned for gun control, she was not shy around them.

Gray had both feared and hoped for some distraction from her. He’d kept ready for it, legs braced. Before the gunman’s body even hit the ground, Gray leaped straight back. He had been watching the Asian woman’s form in the polished chrome of the rear bumper.

The loud gunshot and the sudden backward leap caught her by surprise. Gray raised his right arm and hooked her arm, the one holding the Sig Sauer. As he struck her, he smashed his boot onto the inseam of her foot and cracked his head backward.

He heard something crunchbelow and behind.

Ahead, Kowalski had already elbowed his gunman, grabbed him by the scruff, and slammed his face into the edge of the convertible’s door.

“Eat steel, jackass.”

The gunman dropped like a sack of coal.

Without a pause Gray cradled Anni’s captured fist and swung her arm toward Dr. Nasser. He squeezed the woman’s finger against the trigger. She fought. Compromised, Gray’s aim was off. His shot struck the brick wall with a ringing spark.

Still, it succeeded enough. Dr. Nasser ducked to the right, diving into the bushes that fronted the house, vanishing away.

Gray yanked the pistol from the woman’s grip and back-kicked her away from him. She stumbled but kept her feet. Bloody-nosed, she twisted around and fled toward the van, sprinting like a gazelle, oblivious of her smashed foot.

Going for more weapons.

Gray did not want an encore of Anni Get Your Gun.

He raised the pistol toward her, but before he could fire, a round sizzled past the tip of his nose. From the bushes.

Nasser.

Startled, Gray stumbled backward, going for shelter under the porte cochere. He fired blindly into the bushes, not knowing where the bastard hid. He backpedaled until his calves struck the rear bumper of the T-bird. He fired another two rounds toward the med van.

But Asian Anni had vanished inside.

His shots ricocheted off the van. Like the president’s med van, this one was armor-plated.

Gray yelled. “Everyone inside the car! Now!”

His mother appeared at the kitchen door, holding a smoking pistol. She had her purse over her other arm, as if she were going out for groceries.

“C’mon, Harriet,” his father said. He reached up and hauled her toward the passenger door.

Kowalski leaped headlong into the backseat. Gray feared his bulk might finish Seichan off quicker than anything Nasser planned.

Gray vaulted over into the front seat and crashed hard. He twisted the key, still in the ignition, and the hot engine roared.

The passenger door slammed. Both his parents crowded the one seat.

Gray glanced into the rearview mirror.

Anni stood braced in the opening of the van. She balanced a rocket launcher on her shoulder.

The show isAnni Get Your Gun– notrocket launcher, you bitch!

Gray shifted into gear and slammed the accelerator. Three hundred horses burned the rear tires, rubber smoking and screaming.

His father groaned from the next seat – Gray suspected more about the wear on the glossy new tires than his own safety.

The wheels finally caught a grip, and the Thunderbird leaped forward, crashing through the wooden gate to the backyard. Once through, Gray yanked the wheel hard to avoid hitting a massive hundred-year-old oak. The tires dug a half-doughnut trench across the rear lawn, then sped them deeper into the yard.

Behind them, a sonorous whooshwas followed by a fiery explosion.

The rocket struck the large oak, blasting it to a ruin of flaming branches and bark. Blazing debris shot high. Smoke rolled.

Without glancing back, Gray punched the accelerator.

The Thunderbird smashed through the back fence and barreled into the woodlands of Glover-Archibold Park.

But Gray knew one certainty.

The hunt was just beginning.