Map of Bones (Sigma Force 2)

Gray headed for the garage out back. He heard the twangs of a country music station flowing from the open door. It brought back memories of line dancing at Muleshoes. And other less pleasant recollections.

He stood at the entrance of the garage. His father crouched over a vise-gripped piece of wood, hand-planing an edge.

“Pop,” he said.

His dad straightened and turned. He was as tall as Grayson, but built stocky, wider shoulders, broader back. He had worked the oil fields while putting himself through college, earning a good practical degree in petroleum engineering. He had done well until an industrial accident at a well sheared away his left leg at the knee. The settlement and disability allowed him to retire at forty-seven.

That had been fifteen years ago.

Half of Grayson’s life. The bad half.

His father turned toward him. “Gray?” He wiped the sweat from his brow, smearing sawdust. A scowl formed. “There was no need to come all the way out here.”

“How else would these sandwiches get to you?” He lifted the plate.

“Your mother made those?”

“You know Mom. She tried her best.”

“Then I’d better eat them. Can’t discourage the habit.”

He pushed away from the workbench and hobbled stiff-legged on his prosthesis to a small fridge in the back. “Beer?”

“I have to go back to work in a bit.”

“One beer won’t kill you. I’ve some of that Sam Adams swill you like.”

His father was more of a Budweiser-and-Coors man. But the fact that he stocked his fridge with Sam Adams was about the equivalent of a pat on the back. Maybe even a hug.

He couldn’t refuse.

Gray took the bottle and used the opener built into the edge of the worktable to pop it open. His father sidled over and leaned a hip on a stool. He lifted his own bottle, a Budweiser, in salute. “It sucks to get old…but there’s always beer.”

“So true.” Gray drank deeply. He wasn’t sure he should be mixing codeine and alcohol—then again, it had been a long, long morning.

His father stared at him. The silence threatened to become quickly awkward.

“So,” Gray said, “can’t find your way home any longer.”

“Fuck you,” he responded with false anger, weakened by a grin and a shake of his head. His father appreciated honest talk. Straight shooting, as he used to say. “At least I was no goddamn felon.”

“You can’t let go of my stint in Leavenworth. That you keep remembering!”

His father tipped his beer bottle at Gray. “I will as long as I damn can.”

Their eyes met. He saw something glint behind his father’s banter, something he had seldom seen before. Fear.

The two had never had an easy relationship. His father had taken to heavy drinking after the accident, accompanied by severe bouts of depression. It was hard for a Texas oilman to suddenly become a housewife, raising two boys while his spouse went to work. To compensate, he had run the household like a boot camp. And Gray had always pushed the envelope, a born rebel.

Until at last, at eighteen, Gray had simply packed his bags and joined the Army, leaving in the middle of the night.

Afterward the two did not speak for a full two years.

Slowly his mother had brought them back together. Still, it had remained an uncomfortable détente. She had once said, “You two are more alike than you are different.” Grayson had not heard scarier words.

“This goddamn sucks…” his father said softly, breaking the silence.

“Budweiser certainly does.” Grayson lifted his beer bottle. “That’s why I only drink Sam Adams.”

His father grinned. “You’re an ass**le.”

“You raised me.”

“And I suppose it takes one to know one.”

“I never said that.”

His father rolled his eyes. “Why do you even bother coming over?”

Because I don’t know how long you’ll remember me, he thought, but dared not say it aloud. There remained a tight spot behind his sternum, an old resentment that he could not completely let go. There were words he wanted to say, wanted to hear…and a part of him knew he was running out of time.

“Where did you get these sandwiches?” his father asked, taking a bite and speaking around the mouthful. “They’re pretty good.”

Gray kept his face passive. “Mom made ’em.”

A flicker of confusion followed. “Oh…yeah.”

Their eyes met again. Fear flared brighter in his father’s gaze…and shame. He had lost a part of his manhood fifteen years ago and now he faced losing his humanity.

“Pop…I…”

“Drink your beer.” He heard an edge of familiar anger, and Gray reflexively shied from it.

He drank his beer, sitting silently, neither able to speak. Maybe his mother was right. They were too much alike.

His beeper finally went off at his waist. Gray grabbed it too quickly. He saw the Sigma number.

“That’s the office,” Gray mumbled. “I…I have an afternoon meeting.”

His father nodded. “I should get back to this damn birdhouse.”

They shook hands, two uneasy adversaries conceding no contest.

Gray returned to the house, said his good-byes to his mother, and collected up his bike. He mounted it and quickly pedaled toward the Metro station. The phone number on his beeper had been followed by an alphanumeric code.

911.

An emergency.

Thank God.

5:03 P.M.

VATICAN CITY

THE SEARCH for the truth behind the Three Magi had turned into a painstaking archaeological dig—but instead of hauling dirt and rock, Monsignor Vigor Verona and his crew of archivists were digging through crumbling books and parchments. The crew of scrittori had done the initial spadework in the main Vatican Library; now Vigor sifted for clues about the Magi in one of the most guarded areas of the Holy See: the Archivio Segretto Vaticano, the infamous Secret Archives of the Vatican.

Vigor strode down the long subterranean hall. Each lamp clicked on as he approached and switched off as he left it behind, maintaining a pool of illumination around him and his young student, Jacob. They crossed the length of the main Manuscript Depository, nicknamed the carbonile, or bunker. Built in 1980, the concrete hall rose two stories high, each level separated by a mesh metal floor, connected by steep stairs. On one side, miles of steel shelves contained various archival regestra: bound reams of parchments and papers. On the opposite wall stood the same metal shelves, only sealed and locked behind wire doors, protecting more-sensitive material.