Crucible

by James Rollins

  Earlier, both of them had concluded their captors were some other faction, not the same ones who had killed Carly’s mother and the other women of Bruxas, but a competitor. Word must have spread of the prize Mara had stolen from the university.

  Other vultures had closed in.

  “Do you think they’ll torture us?” Mara asked.

  “No.”

  Mara was relieved, but Carly wasn’t done.

  “They’ll torture me,” her friend said. “To force you to cooperate.”

  Mara tightened her fingers on Carly’s hand.

  Carly stared over, her eyes glassy with suppressed tears. She licked her lips, looking like she wanted to say something.

  Mara felt the same. They’d known each other for half a decade, those formative years from sixteen to now, when both were maturing out of childhood toward the women they’d become. In the past, they had no trouble talking, though it was usually on the phone, or over long e-mail chains, or exchanged in short, excitable texts. A majority of their relationship was long-distance, but the world had grown much smaller. Pen pals no longer had to wait weeks or months to communicate.

  Still, separated by an ocean, the two had spent little physical time together. Their friendship, their bond, their deep connection was mostly born from sharing their thoughts, dreams, fears, and hopes.

  Mara stared back at Carly, at the curls crowning her brow. If only Mara had the nerve to speak now, the courage to fill that last gulf between them, to say what was unspoken.

  Mara waited too long.

  Carly bowed her head, a touch shyly, and turned her attention to the door. She asked the question plaguing them both.

  “Who the hell are these bastards?”

  5:18 P.M.

  Gray weighed his options.

  He eyed the silver Desert Eagle pointed at his face, imagining it was chambered in a .357 or .44 Magnum. Its owner’s gaze was steady, no-nonsense. The man would not bother with anything smaller. To make matters worse, Gray was practically sitting on his own weapon. Kowalski, cramped in the back, surely couldn’t swing up his rifle. And Jason already had his palms raised.

  Bailey, if that was even his real—

  “My name is Finnigan Bailey,” their captor said. “But friends call me Finn.”

  “Don’t think I’ll be calling you that anytime soon,” Gray said. “And let me guess. You’re not with the DSS.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t count myself among such an illustrious group. But I’m with an organization perhaps equally loyal to their pursuit. Maybe more so.”

  Gray guessed from his Irish brogue that the man was with the New Irish Republican Army, the latest incarnation of the IRA. It seemed all manner of terrorist organizations were coming out of the woodwork, pursuing Mara Silviera’s work, attracted by its potential.

  Bailey reached his free hand to his chin, loosened his tie, and undid the top two buttons, revealing his true affiliation. His outer dress shirt hid a thinner black shirt beneath, along with the peek of a white Roman clerical collar.

  Gray failed to hide his shock.

  That can’t be authentic.

  Bailey lowered his gun. “Sorry about this, but as armed as you all are, I couldn’t risk you doing something rash.”

  “Motherf—” Kowalski bit off the end of his curse.

  Baily pretended not to hear. “I had to get you out of the airport in such a manner that any prying eyes would assume the same as you.”

  Jason dropped his hands to his lap. “That we were traveling with the Carsons’ protection detail to meet the family.”

  “Then if not there, where are we going?” Gray asked.

  “I’m taking you to Ms. Silviera and Ms. Carson.” His voice firmed, serious. “They will need your help. I can only hope your resourcefulness proves as good as your reputation.”

  Gray struggled to catch up to the swift change in circumstance.

  Can I even trust this guy? Who says he’s even a priest?

  Bailey seemed to read his distrust. “I assure you I am Father Bailey.” That twinkle again in his eye. “Would a priest lie?”

  Kowalski snorted. “How about a priest pointing a friggin’ gun at your head?”

  “I would’ve never shot you, not even in self-defense.”

  “You tell us that now,” Kowalski grumbled. “I practically shi— Had an accident.”

  Gray leaned forward, still suspicious. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  The van slowed and came to a stop in front of a tall house at the edge of a square. Bailey nodded toward the building. “Once inside, I’ll tell you everything. I’ll lay all my cards on the table.” The amusement still sparkled in those green eyes. “And I mean that literally.”

  5:35 P.M.

  Carly heard the door unlock and stood up from the bed. She balled a fist and took a step to put herself between Mara and whoever entered. She tensed a back leg, shifting her weight, ready to lash out with a kick, if given an opening.

  Mara climbed to her feet behind her.

  “Stay back,” Carly warned her friend.

  Out of the glare of the brighter lights in the next room, a figure emerged. He stepped into the room, holding up empty palms. Carly frowned, not understanding. The tall man was dressed all in black: boots, pants, belt, shirt. The only exception was the flash of white under his chin, marking a distinctive collar.

  A priest?

  Surely this was some ruse, some trick to get them to trust their captors.

  “Ms. Carson, Ms. Silviera, please accept my apologies for keeping you both waiting for so long. And in the dark, so to speak. It took me longer than I anticipated to bring all the players into the same space.” He stepped back and gave a small bow toward the next room. “If you’ll join us, perhaps we can get to know one another.”

  Carly hesitated, then realized the futility. Still, she whispered to Mara. “Stay near me.”

  At the first chance, we’re getting the hell out of here.

  Mara didn’t need to be persuaded. As Carly headed toward the door, Mara clung close, becoming her shadow.

  The priest led them down a short hall to a dining room. The space was cheered by a marble fireplace dancing with flames, wood crackling with invitation. Tall windows overlooked the square, framing the two towers of the church on its far side. The sun had set, but a twilight gloaming still persisted, setting the church’s stone façade to glowing, as if the place of worship still retained some of the holy day’s light and warmth.

  “We’ve set up a light meal,” the priest said, drawing her attention to the table and the group of men gathered around it.

  Platters of cheese, bread, and an assortment of fruit made her stomach growl. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Mara also eyed the bounty with both hunger and suspicion.

  As they crossed to the table, Carly judged the hard-looking crowd. Standing near the exit were the two men who had ambushed them at the bar. She glared over, but they remained expressionless. Across the table were three strangers. She innately sensed—from their clothes, postures, expressions—they were American even before they spoke.

  The priest made introductions all around and urged them to sit.

  She was right about them being Americans. The tallest—with a perpetual scowl locked around a smoldering cigar—looked like something out of a horror story, all muscle, from toes to his brain. The other two looked just as hard, but more approachable. One had an intensity that was difficult to stare directly at, especially into those storm-gray eyes. The last was closer to her own age. With tussled blond hair, he could almost be considered cute. He offered an embarrassed smile as they approached, his gaze lingering a touch longer on her.

  Carly was not unaccustomed to such attention.

  Still, she didn’t return his smile.

  “Come,” the priest insisted. “Sit.”

  They all settled to the table, each to their own side, with the priest still standing at one end. “Commander Pierce, just to break the ic
e, perhaps you should be the first to lay your cards on the table. I think that would expedite matters considerably.”

  “What are you talking about?” the man asked harshly, clearly no fan of their host, which made Carly trust him a little more.

  “I’d suggest starting with your ID. From your organization.”

  The commander remained still for a breath, then a light dawned in his eyes. He reached to a pocket, removed a wallet, then pulled out a black, metallic-looking card. He flicked it across the table. It came to a stop between her and Mara.

  From its glossy surface, a silver hologram hovered.

  It was a single symbol—a Greek letter.

  Mara gasped and shared a worried look with Carly. “Sigma.”

  Carly let steel fill her spine, enough to risk staring into the cold fire of those eyes. “Who are you?” She nudged the card. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “We’re members of Sigma Force, an organization affiliated with DARPA.”

  Mara frowned. “The U.S. military’s R-and-D group?”

  “The same. It was DARPA that was funding your research at the university, via money channeled through Bruxas International.” His gaze turned to Carly. “Your mother knew of our involvement and was sworn to secrecy. We suspect the Sigma symbol generated by Mara’s AI might’ve been a call for help.”

  Mara leaned forward. “I wondered the same thing myself.”

  The young blond man—Jason—spoke. “But can you be sure? The appearance of this symbol could just be a coincidence. Maybe we’re all reading too much into this digital Rorschach.”

  “Perhaps.” Mara shook her head. “But there’s no way to tell. Not without Xénese and its programming.”

  “And you lost it,” Gray said, clearly having heard their story. Still, there was no blame in his voice or manner.

  “But we managed to keep the hard drives housing my subroutines,” Mara added.

  Carly nodded. “We were able to wrench those from the bastards who attacked us.”

  . . . and who killed my mother.

  Mara swallowed. “I think we would’ve lost those, too, if we’d not had some advanced warning.”

  “What do you mean?” Gray asked.

  Mara shared a glance with Carly, then continued: “The program was acting strange. Just before we were attacked. It seemed to be sensing something. I think it was picking up the GPS signal from the tracker planted on us. But now in hindsight, this detail worries me.”

  Jason grabbed a slice of bread and cheese. “Why?”

  “Eve—that’s the name of the AI—was fixed on that signal, looking scared, almost as if she recognized it. Which makes me wonder now if she might have remembered it from before.”

  Jason crinkled his nose. “From when?”

  “From the library, from the attack.” Mara cast Carly an apologetic look. “If Carly’s mother or one of the other women had been tracked to the library with the same bug, then Eve might have recognized it, somewhere deep in her quantum processor, some ghost memory from her first incarnation.”

  “And associated it with bloodshed and murder,” Gray said.

  Mara nodded. “And that’s what really has me scared. The current stage of Eve—what was stolen from the hotel—is both delicate and brittle. Such fragility, in the hands of someone inexperienced—”

  The priest interrupted. “Or worse yet, with someone who intends to wreak great havoc.”

  All eyes turned on the man.

  Gray frowned. “What do you know about all of this, Father Bailey? How are you involved?”

  “Ah, yes, Commander Pierce, I told you that I’d lay my cards on the table.” He nodded to the black metallic card. “Just like you did.”

  From a pocket, the priest drew two black cards and placed them side by side on the table. They looked like twin pieces of obsidian, glassy rectangles broken from the stained-glass window of a church. This feeling was accentuated by the identical symbols found on each card: a set of crossed keys tied with a ribbon and surmounted by a crown.

  Courtesy of Shutterstock

  Carly didn’t understand. She recognized the papal seal on each card, the sigil of the pope, but such knowledge clarified nothing.

  Across the table, Gray’s eyes had narrowed on the pair. He stood up abruptly, knocking back his chair, clearly finding significance in those cards.

  “It’s the Twins . . .”

  14

  December 25, 5:55 P.M. WET

  Lisbon, Portugal

  From across the table, Gray stared at Father Bailey with dawning insight.

  That’s why you seemed so familiar.

  He studied the amused sparkle in Bailey’s eyes. It was the look of a father charmed by a child—half entertained by the naïveté on display, half envious of the innocence. Gray had only seen that particular sparkle in one other’s eye, a man much older, now gone, one who had helped Sigma in the past.

  Bailey looked at the two cards on the table. “I see you’ve not forgotten the lessons of Monsignor Vigor Verona.”

  Kowalski huffed out a trail of dark smoke. “Jesus . . .”

  Gray gripped the table’s edge, momentarily overwhelmed by memories. He pictured his friend—along with the monsignor’s niece, who had stolen his heart. Both were gone, sacrificing themselves to save the world.

  He finally waved to the twin symbols resting on the table. “Does this mean you’re a card-carrying member of the Thomas Church?”

  Bailey shrugged. “Monsignor Verona recruited me. I was his student once upon a time, back when he taught as a professor at the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology in Rome, before he became prefect of the Vatican Archives. I now follow in his footsteps, picking up where he left off.”

  “Does that mean you’re also with the Vatican intelligenza?”

  Bailey shrugged again, not denying it.

  While alive, Monsignor Vigor Verona had borne more titles than just professor and prefect. He had also served as an operative for the Vatican intelligenza—their intelligence services.

  Jason sat straighter with this revelation. “So, you’re a spy for the Vatican? For the pope?”

  “For the church as a whole,” Bailey corrected.

  “So that’s how you knew we were coming, landing in Lisbon.” Jason turned to Gray. “I’m guessing when Director Crowe sent feelers throughout the global intelligence communities—”

  “It reached us, too,” Bailey finished.

  Across the table, Dr. Carson’s daughter stood up, drawing their attention. “What the hell are you all talking about? Are you saying this priest is some sort of secret agent?”

  Gray figured he’d better explain. “The Vatican is a sovereign country. For decades—if not centuries—it has secretly employed operatives who infiltrated hate groups, secret societies, hostile countries, wherever the concerns of the Vatican were threatened.”

  Gray remembered Vigor sharing the case of Walter Ciszek, a priest operating under the alias Vladimir Lipinski. The priest played a cat-and-mouse game with the KGB for years, before being captured and spending more than two decades in a Soviet prison.

  Carly glared at Father Bailey. “In other words, he’s James Bond in a clerical collar.”

  “But we don’t come with a license to kill,” Bailey clarified, with a teasing smile. “We still have a higher set of commandments to adhere to. Still, like Mr. Bond, I’m not above indulging in a martini every now and then. Shaken, not stirred, of course.”

  Mara remained seated but leaned closer. She pointed to the cards. “But what’s the significance of these symbols?” She eyed Gray. “You clearly know them.”

  Gray pictured the gold rings worn by Vigor in the past, each bearing one of these seals. “They’re symbols of the Thomas Church.” He shifted the cards closer to her. “What do you see here?”

  “Just the papal seal,” she answered correctly. “On both cards.”

  “Look closer.”

  Mara pinched her brows, but it w
as Carly who noted the difference.

  “They’re not exactly the same.” She tapped one card, then the other. “Look, Mara, how one seal has the darker key on the left. The other has it on the right. They’re mirror images of one another.”

  Mara glanced over to Gray. “So, like you said before . . . twins. But I still don’t understand.”

  “In Hebrew,” Gray explained, “the word twin translates as Thomas. As in Saint Thomas.”

  Mara glanced over her shoulder. “Or Doubting Thomas? Back there, I saw a painting of Saint Thomas, examining the wounds of Christ.”

  Intrigued, Gray followed her gaze, wondering if the presence of such a painting might indicate the house was some secret gathering place for members of the Thomas Church.

  As if summoned by this thought, the door behind him opened and a severe older woman entered. With gray hair tucked neatly under a crisp white bonnet, she looked to be in her sixties, maybe older. She wore a simple gray robe, belted with a knotted cord, and tapped across the room, leaning imperceptibly on an unpolished ebony cane. She ignored the group and headed toward Father Bailey. She did not rush, but moved with a steadfast purpose that spoke of hidden strength.

  Conversation halted. As she crossed behind Gray, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck quivered. It felt like a dark storm front passing by.

  She stepped to Father Bailey and whispered in his ear. Even the priest leaned toward her, rather than the other way around. Nothing of this woman hinted at subservience—but clearly there was someone she did serve.

  Bailey nodded as she finished. “Thank you, Sister Beatrice.”

  The nun—a bride of Christ—retreated a step, but she didn’t leave. She simply stood with the cane propped before her, both palms resting on its hooked silver handle, its only adornment. Her gaze swept the table and settled on Kowalski. Her lips thinned to a more severe line, plainly displeased.

  Kowalski tried to meet that gaze but crumbled. Clearly sensing the intent behind that scolding look, he took out his cigar and stamped its glowing end into an ashtray, stubbing it out.