The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  Before Rachel could explore the writings in more depth, Seichan reached to the book and flipped back to the front page. A symbol was drawn there. It was Egyptian. She glanced over at Gray. He recognized it. They had all seen it before.

  He now knew why the Guild had grown so excited. The group had always been fixated on the roots of ancient knowledge, especially Egyptian. Father Giovanni must have suspected an Egyptian connection and let it leak out, sparking the Guild’s sudden interest.

  He stared down at the symbol, one they’d encountered before while dealing with the Guild years ago: conical depictions of a sacred meal.

  The symbol represented what was called shrewbread, or the bread of the gods. It was fed to the pharaohs to open their minds to divinity. Had the dark queen Meritaten brought more than just a miraculous embalming compound from Egypt? Had she carried forth some of the shrewbread? Had Malachy consumed it, touched the divine, and experienced his visions?

  Gray stared down at the symbol drawn in the front of the book.

  Before any of them could explore it further, a blast rocked down from above. This explosion was louder. It stung his ears. Smoke and rock dust swept out of the tunnel and into the chamber.

  “They’re through,” Seichan said.

  Gray swung to Kowalski. “Get your rifle and—”

  But before the big man could move, Wallace deftly plucked the weapon out of Kowalski’s hands. The professor swung the rifle at them. He backed in a shuffle of steps toward the tunnel.

  “I don’t think so,” Wallace said.

  From the passageway, six soldiers rushed into the chamber, followed by a tall woman with a Sig Sauer pistol held in her hand.

  Wallace glanced back. “‘Bout time you got down here, lassie.”

  32

  October 14, 4:15 P.M.

  Clairvaux, France

  Krista appreciated the shocked looks on their faces. Especially the Eurasian woman’s. Even through the blood, her fury shone back at Krista like an open flame. The anger only warmed Krista further. After all the hardships in getting here, this moment was almost worth it.

  Almost.

  “You didn’t think you were my only asset out here?” Krista asked calmly. “What’s trust without an extra bit of insurance?”

  Wallace joined her with his rifle.

  She nudged her elbow in his direction. “Wallace and I have been a good team from the start. Back since he first discovered that pathologic fungus. The professor was also kind enough to warn us about Father Giovanni’s betrayal. The priest should have been more careful to whom he made his confession.”

  A small laugh escaped her, unbidden, bubbling forth from a mix of elation and raw-edged relief. She fought it back down, hating the moment of weakness. Anger took its place and helped anchor her.

  She steadied her voice and glanced at Wallace. “What about the key? Is it here?”

  Wallace grinned. “Aye, and we found it. It’s in that jar over yonder.”

  Gray Pierce backed up a step. “We had a deal.”

  She didn’t have time for such foolishness or naïveté. “Khattab, go get it.”

  To discourage any last-minute treachery, Krista kept her pistol pointed at the Italian woman. With no choice, Gray handed over the stone jar.

  In turn, Khattab left them something in exchange. As she had arranged, he placed the steel suitcase on the floor and retreated back with the key.

  Gray stared down at the case. From his expression, he already guessed its contents.

  She elaborated. “An incendiary bomb using kinetic fireballs. New design out of China. Burns for a very long time. Hot enough to incinerate the bricks off the walls. Can’t leave anything behind.”

  Gray stepped forward. “At least take Rachel with you,” he pleaded. “Honor that much.”

  She shook her head and felt an odd twinge of respect for the man. Along with a trickle of sorrow. She recognized the pain in those eyes, along with the wellspring from which it rose. Would anyone ever make such a sacrifice for her?

  With an exasperated sigh, she offered the only bit of consolation she could. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t do any good. I wasn’t entirely truthful. The vial of toxin Wallace left in that drop box for Seichan has no cure. It’s a hundred percent fatal. She’s likely experiencing its effects already. Dying here will be swifter, less painful.”

  Krista retreated from the shocked expression on his face. The Italian woman turned away and buried her face in Gray’s chest.

  Krista turned to Khattab. “Let’s go. Make sure your man blows the entrance to the tunnel before evacuating.”

  She was done here.

  Or almost.

  She turned and pointed her pistol at Wallace. His eyes widened. She pulled the trigger and shot him in the stomach. He didn’t cry out, just gasped and fell on his backside.

  His face screwed up in a mask of pain as he supported himself with one arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  She shrugged and shifted the pistol toward his head.

  “I’m Echelon,” he spat at her.

  She froze, shocked. She struggled to make sense of the claim. Could it be true? Only a few people alive even knew the name Echelon.

  She kept her pistol leveled. She remained unsure, but she knew one thing for certain. The only way to move up in this organization—there had to be room at the top.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Wallace’s head cracked back, then forward. He collapsed to the floor.

  She swung around and headed toward the tunnel. She expected no repercussions. Her orders had been to kill everyone.

  All of them, she remembered.

  “Let’s go!”

  She hurried with the others up the tunnel. Khattab kept to her side with the stone jar cradled under one arm. Sunlight flowed ahead and drew them forward. A rubble pile led to freedom through the blasted door.

  She wanted to be out of there as soon as they were aboveground. The prison was growing too hot. Gunfire echoed down to them.

  She followed the soldiers topside. They scrambled as a group out of darkness and into sunlight. It took her an extra moment to realize how loud the gunfire was. It wasn’t until Khattab fell to one knee, then down to his side, that she recognized the danger.

  Half his face was gone. The stone jar rolled from his dead arms out into the sunlit garden.

  More men fell around her as she spun and dove behind a pillar.

  The war had reached them.

  Overhead, a loud eruption of flames drew her eye. She watched one of their helicopters explode in a fireball of smoke and flaming debris. It spun and slammed to the ground.

  Her heart pounded.

  What was going on?

  Then across the garden, she spotted who was firing, who had ambushed her team. Men in French military uniforms. But more than that, she recognized the man in the lead.

  Impossible.

  It was that damned Indian.

  Painter Crowe.

  Her heart pounded—not with fear, but with a rage that burned away all reason. She reached into a pocket and pressed the transmitter. The ground bumped under her, and the explosion blasted. Smoke rolled up out of the hole in the ground.

  There would be no rescue for his teammates.

  Using the distraction and smoke, Krista fell back into the shadows. She didn’t fool herself. Trapped in the prison with her team overwhelmed, all was lost. She had only one objective left. She had made a promise to herself before she left Norway, a promise she intended to keep.

  4:20 P.M.

  The firefight ended as suddenly as it started.

  Painter’s group had been caught off guard by the sudden appearance of a contingent of hostiles pouring out of a hole in the ground. His team had failed to spot the tunnel opening buried in the shadows of a blasted section of the cloisters.

  But the last of the enemy had fallen.

  The French soldiers spread out and through the garden. They kept rifles on their shoulders
, moving swiftly and purposely.

  Painter dropped back. He let out a shuddering breath. He searched the grounds. Where were Gray and the others?

  Monk crossed toward him down the walkway. His rifle still smoked. His expression remained grim, worried for his friends.

  The only warning was a shift of shadows. A woman rolled into view at a narrow doorway to Painter’s right. From a foot away, she had a pistol pointed at Painter’s chest.

  She fired four times.

  The blasts cracked like thunderclaps.

  Only one shot grazed Painter’s shoulder. At the same time she fired, he was tackled to the side.

  He landed hard on a knee and twisted around.

  He watched the impact of the bullets pound John Creed out into the garden. The man toppled onto his back.

  The woman screamed and came at Painter, bringing her gun to his face. He lunged up at her. He’d freed the blade from his boot and stabbed it deep into her belly.

  Well trained, she ignored the pain and got the gun under his chin. Her eyes said it all. The blade could not stop her before she killed him.

  “Think this is yours,” Painter said savagely and pressed the button on the WASP dagger’s hilt.

  The explosion of compressed gas ripped into her belly. It pulverized and flash-froze her internal organs. Shock and pain burst through her, paralyzing her.

  He shoved her away with both arms. She flew and crashed onto her back. Her mouth stretched into a silent scream of agony—then her body went limp. Dead.

  Monk rushed past Painter into the garden. “Creed!”

  Painter leaped to his feet and followed.

  Creed lay on his back. Blood flowed from his lips, bubbled from the three shots to the chest. His eyes were huge, knowing what was coming.

  Monk fell to his knees next to him. He tore off his jacket and bunched it up, readying a compression. “Hang on!”

  All of them knew there was nothing to be done. Blood had pooled and spread over the hard-packed ground. The rounds must have been hollow-points, shredding on impact.

  Creed fumbled blindly for Monk’s hand and gripped it tight. Monk covered it with his other palm.

  “John …”

  One last breath escaped. Creed’s hand slipped away. Monk tried to grab it back, as if that might help, but the man’s eyes went glassy.

  “No,” Monk moaned.

  Painter leaned down to offer what could only be cold comfort—but a new noise intruded. He swung around, dropping low. It came from the smoky hole.

  He watched a group crawl into sight, climbing out of the hole, coughing and staggering.

  One figure searched around, then stumbled out into the garden.

  “Gray …”

  4:22 P.M.

  They’d only had seconds.

  Gray had known the woman would blow the incendiary charge as soon as she was outside. So as the last soldier vanished up the tunnel, he had sprinted over to the Celtic cross and spun its wheel. The monks would have engineered some mechanism for sending the tombs back into hiding.

  It was a natural enough guess.

  Spin the wheel, spin the floors.

  He had been right.

  Turning the wheel flipped the tombs back below and rolled the spiral designs up.

  As the floors rotated, Gray yelled for Kowalski to toss the suitcase bomb down into the cavity below. He wasn’t sure if it would be enough protection, but they had no other option. Afterward, they fled to the walls and dropped to their stomachs.

  When the explosion blew, the circular plates of the floor jumped up, dancing on flames—then crashed back down. The heat seared like a blast furnace. Smoke choked, but most of it got sucked up the tunnel as up a chimney flue.

  It was the conflagration below that remained the danger.

  The fires baked the stones under them. Off to the side, the bronze spiral began to glow through the smoky pall.

  Gray called for them to retreat to the tunnel.

  Crouched there, Gray heard a firefight echoing down from above—then the gunfire suddenly ended.

  He didn’t know what was happening. He heard a few more shots and then someone yelled. He knew that voice. He almost shook with relief.

  Monk.

  As the heat grew worse, Gray had led the others up the tunnel and back out into the open. Bodies lay everywhere. French soldiers surrounded them. He stumbled into the garden.

  “They’re with us!” Painter shouted, pushing forward.

  Gray struggled to understand what his boss was doing here, how he could be here. But explanations would have to wait. Searching around, Gray spotted a familiar stone-and-gold object rolled up against a bush.

  The canopic jar.

  Relieved, he rushed over, dropped to his knees, and collected it up.

  The lid was still in place.

  Painter joined him.

  “It’s the Doomsday key,” Gray explained.

  “Keep it safe.” Painter turned as Seichan joined them. Gray’s boss seemed unsurprised at her being there.

  Seichan faced Painter and shook her head.

  “We had to attempt it,” he told her cryptically.

  “It still failed. I warned you from the start that the Guild would never trust me fully again.” Seichan turned her back and stared into the garden toward the one victim who hadn’t truly escaped. “And I shouldn’t have trusted the Guild.”

  Rachel stood numbly, her face turned up to the sky. They were all free, but she was still trapped.

  Even now, as Gray watched, her legs trembled.

  The heat, the stress, it had worn her body past endurance.

  With her face still in the sun, she went boneless and collapsed.

  10:32 P.M.

  Troyes, France

  Hours later, Gray sat on a bench in the corridor outside Rachel’s hospital room. Monk and a French internist were inside. Rachel had been hooked to an intravenous drip and pumped full of a cocktail of antibiotics. Though she was out of danger, it had been a close call. She’d had to be evacuated by helicopter to the medical facility in Troyes.

  But at least she was awake again.

  Gray picked at the bandage around his hand. His wounds had been debrided, stitched up, and wrapped. But he knew he was far from healed.

  A door opened down the hall. He watched Seichan step out of her room. She wore a hospital gown and carried a pack of cigarettes. She glanced down the hall, clearly wondering where she could smoke in a hospital. She turned in his direction and suddenly froze.

  She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. He suspected she would have to get accustomed to that state. The Guild would be hunting for her. The United States still had orders to capture her. It had taken all of Painter’s skill to keep her presence secret. He was still off putting out a thousand fires, holding the world at bay.

  But they couldn’t hide forever.

  None of them.

  Gray patted the seat next to him.

  For half a minute, Seichan remained standing, then finally walked over. Half her face was in a bandage. She didn’t sit. She stood with her arms crossed. Her eyes were slightly glazed by morphine. She stared toward Rachel’s door.

  “I didn’t poison her,” she said in a hoarse whisper. So soon after surgery, it wasn’t good for her to talk. But Gray knew she had to.

  “I know,” Gray said. “She’s got double pneumonia. Too long in the rain, too much stress, a low-grade viral infection.”

  Seichan sank to the bench.

  Painter had already explained most of the story. A month ago he had approached Seichan, tracked her down using the implant. She hadn’t discovered the bug on her own. In fact, according to Painter, she’d been shocked, angry, and hurt by the betrayal when he finally told her. But he offered her a chance, convinced her to work for him, to attempt one last time to infiltrate the Guild. Painter had caught wind of the pending order to haul her in for interrogation. He knew she still offered the best chance to discover who ran the Guild.r />
  She had agreed and waited for the right mission to arise to prove herself to the Guild, to try to insinuate her way back into their fold. She never suspected it would drive her into conflict with Gray. But once committed, there was no turning back.

  “I had to maintain the ruse,” Seichan said, referring to both the poisoning and her overall subterfuge. “I switched thermoses in Hawkshead. I pretended to dose Rachel, but then afterward I destroyed the biotoxin. I knew there were spotters watching our every move. My phone was being monitored. Plus I already had suspicions about Wallace Boyle.”

  Gray imagined that those suspicions had less to do with any insight about the professor and more to do with her usual state of constant paranoia, but in this particular case, they were well placed.

  “It was only when we reached France, when we all split up, that I had a chance to get away from Wallace, to steal a disposable phone. After I killed the assassins in the woods—”

  “You called Painter. You knew then the mission was a bust and let him know it.”

  She nodded. “I had no choice but to break cover. We needed help.”

  That they did.

  During the same phone conversation, Painter had asked her to continue her charade. With Wallace still an unknown and the death count climbing in the Midwest, the world needed that key. Even if it meant staying in bed with the devil.

  A long stretch of silence rose between them. It was awkward and tense. She fingered her pack of cigarettes and looked ready to bolt.

  Gray finally broached a subject he’d brought up before.

  He turned to her. “You told me long ago that you were one of the good guys, that you were really working against the Guild as a double agent. Was that true?”

  She stared at the floor for a long time, then glanced sidelong at him. A hardness crept into her voice and her eyes. “Does it matter now?”

  Gray studied her, matching her gaze. He tried to read her, but she was a wall. In the past, during missions where their paths had crossed, she had ultimately helped him. Her methods were brutal—like murdering the Venetian curator—but who was he to judge? He had not walked in her shoes. He sensed a well of loneliness, of hard survival, of abuse that was beyond his world.