Map of Bones (Sigma Force 2)

Then he spotted it, half hidden in the glare of the flashlights. At the base of the tomb, a section of the stone floor slowly tilted downward, forming a narrow ramp that led beneath the tomb. From below, a cobalt light flickered. Raoul stepped in front of the camera, blocking the view. He headed down the ramp, leaving only the two guards.

That’s where he had disappeared.

Gray sped up the video back to the present. He now watched a few brilliant flashes erupt from below, blinding bursts of white light. Camera flashes. Raoul was recording whatever he found down there.

A few seconds later, Raoul climbed back up the ramp.

The bastard wore a grimace of satisfaction.

He had won.

9:59 P.M.

LYING FLAT atop the mausoleum roof, Kat had managed to get one shot off, taking out the gunman holding a rifle to Monk’s head. But another quake threw off her next shot. The remaining opponent did not hesitate. From the direction his comrade’s body had fallen, he must have guessed where she hid.

He dove down and clubbed Monk with the metal hilt of a hunting knife, then pulled him up as a shield. He pressed the blade to Monk’s neck.

“Come out!” the man called in heavily accented English, sounding Germanic. “Or I will remove this one’s head.”

Kat closed her eyes. It was Kabul all over again. She and Captain Marshall had gone in to save two captured soldiers, teammates. Decapitation had been threatened. But they had no choice. Though the odds were stacked against them three-to-one, they had made an assault, going in quiet, with knives and bayonets. But she had missed one guard, hidden in an alcove. A crack of a rifle, and Marshall went down. She had dispatched the last guard with a fling of a dagger, but it was too late for the captain. She had held his body as he gasped his last breath, thrashing in pain, eyes on her, pleading, knowing, disbelieving…then nothing. Eyes gone to glass. A vital man, a tender man, gone like smoke.

“Come out now!” the man yelled across the necropolis.

“Kat?” Rachel subvocalized to her, touching her elbow. The Carabinieri lieutenant lay flat next to her on the roof.

“Stay hidden,” Kat said. “Try to make it to one of the ropes that lead out of here.” That had been their original plan, to leap from rooftop to rooftop, to gain one of the scaling ropes that still hung down from the level above, to raise the alarm and gather reinforcements. That plan must not fail.

Rachel knew this, too.

Kat had her own duty. She rolled off the mausoleum roof and landed lithely on her toes. She glided over two rows to hide her former position, leaving some room for Rachel to escape, then stepped out into the open, ten yards from the man who held Monk. Kat lifted her hands and tossed her pistol aside. She laced her fingers and put them atop her head.

“I surrender,” she said coldly.

Dazed and blind, Monk struggled, but the man restraining him had enough training to keep him subdued, on his knees, knife point digging into his neck. Kat studied Monk’s eyes as she strode forward.

Three steps.

The combatant relaxed. Kat noted his knife point shift away.

Good enough.

She dove forward, pulling the dagger from her wrist sheath. She used her momentum to fling the blade. It sailed and struck the man in the eye. He fell backward, carrying Monk with him.

Kat twisted, yanking a blade from her boot. She flipped it in the direction Monk had indicated, catching the barest flicker of shadow. A third combatant. A short cry followed. A man fell out of the shadows, pierced through the neck.

Monk struggled to his feet, fingers scrabbling and finding the other’s knife. But he had lost his goggles, and Kat didn’t have a spare pair. She would have to guide him.

She helped Monk up and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Stay with me,” she whispered.

She turned as a flashlight flared ahead of her. Amplified by her night-vision scopes, the sudden brightness seared into the back of her head, blinding, painful.

A fourth combatant.

Someone she missed.

Again.

10:02 P.M.

GRAY HAD noted the bloom of light on his computer screen, deep in the necropolis. That couldn’t be good. It proved not to be. On one side of the split-screen image, he watched Raoul press his radio to his ear, his smile broadening. On the other side, he watched Kat and Monk being marched out at gunpoint, arms secured behind their backs with yellow plastic fast-ties.

They were shoved up the steps to the top of the platform.

Raoul remained by the tomb. The ground continued to tremble. One of his bodyguards stood beside him; the other had gone down the ramp.

Raoul raised his voice. “Commander Pierce! Lieutenant Verona! Show yourselves now or these two die!”

Gray remained where he was. He didn’t have the force to overpower this situation. Rescue was hopeless. And if he gave in to the demands, he would just be handing his own life over. Raoul would kill them all. He closed his eyes, knowing he was dooming his teammates.

A new voice drew his eyes back open.

“I’m coming!” Rachel stepped into view on the second camera. She had her hands in the air.

Gray watched Kat shake her head. She, too, knew the foolishness of the lieutenant’s act.

Two armed gunmen collected Rachel and drove her to join the others.

Raoul stepped forward and pointed a meaty pistol into Rachel’s shoulder. He bellowed at her ear, “This is a horse pistol, Commander Pierce! Fifty-six caliber! It will rip her arm right off! Show yourself or I’ll start removing limbs! On the count of five!”

Gray saw the flash of terror in Rachel’s eyes.

Could he watch his friends brutally torn apart? And if he did, what would he gain? As he hid, Raoul and his men would surely take or destroy whatever clue had been hidden here. The others’ deaths would be for nothing.

“Five…”

He stared at the laptop, at Rachel…

No choice.

Suppressing a groan, he wiggled out of his pack and grabbed one item from an inner pocket, palming it.

“Four…”

Gray switched the laptop into dark mode and clicked it closed. If he didn’t live, he would have to trust that the computer would serve as witness to the events down here.

“Three…”

Gray crawled out of the mausoleum but remained hidden. He circled to hide his position.

“Two…”

He ducked back onto the main street.

“One…”

He laced his hands atop his head and stepped into sight. “I’m here. Don’t shoot!”

10:04 P.M.

RACHEL WATCHED Gray march up to them at gunpoint.