The Doomsday Key (Sigma Force 6)

“Come see this!” the abbot shouted.

Martin stumbled toward him. It was more a reflex than a conscious effort. He did not want to return to the smithy. He would leave the boy to the care of the French butcher. Martin crossed the village green, climbed the steps, and joined the Catholic monk.

“What is it, Abbot Orren?”

The man turned and headed into the church. “Blasphemy,” the Irish abbot spat out, “to defile the place in such a manner. No wonder they were all slain.”

Martin hurried after the abbot. The man was skeletally thin and ghostly in his oversized traveling cloak. Of them all, he was the only one to have visited the island off the coast of Ireland, to have seen the wasting there, too.

“Did you find what you were seeking?” Martin asked.

The abbot did not answer and stepped back into the crude church. Martin had no choice but to follow. The interior was gloomy, a cheerless place with an earthen floor covered in rushes. There were no benches, and the roof was low and heavily raftered. The only light came from a pair of high thin windows at the back of the church. They cast dusty streaks of light upon the altar, which was a single slab of stone. An altar cloth must have once covered the raw stone, but it had been torn away and cast to the floor, most likely by the abbot in his search.

Abbot Orren crossed to the altar and pointed to the bare stone with a trembling arm. His shoulders shook with his anger. “Blasphemy,” he repeated, “to carve these heathen symbols upon our Lord’s house.”

Martin closed the distance and leaned closer to the altar. The stone had been inscribed with sunbursts and spirals, with circles and strange knotted shapes, all clearly pagan.

“Why would these pious people commit such a sin?”

“I don’t think it was the villagers of Highglen,” Martin said.

He ran his hand over the altar. Under his fingertips, he sensed the age of the markings, the worn nature of the inscribed shapes. These were clearly old. Martin remembered his driver’s assertion that this place was cursed, that it was hallowed ground to the ancient Celtic people, and that their giant stones could be found hidden in the misty highland forests.

Martin straightened. One of those stones must have been hauled to Highglen and used to form the altar of the village church.

“If it’s not the people here who did it, then how do you explain this?” the abbot asked. He moved to the wall behind the altar and waved an arm to encompass the large marking there. It had been painted recently, and from the brownish-red color, possibly with blood. It depicted a circle with a cross cutting through it.

Martin had seen such markings on burial stones and ancient ruins. It was a sacred symbol of the Celtic priesthood.

“A pagan cross,” Martin said.

“We found the same on the island, marked on all the doors.”

“But what does it mean?”

The abbot fingered the silver cross at his own neck. “It is as the king feared. The snakes who plagued Ireland, who were driven off our island by Saint Patrick, have come to these shores.”

Martin knew the abbot was not referring to true serpents of the field but to the pagan priests who carried staffs curled like snakes, to the Druid leaders of the ancient Celtic people. Saint Patrick had converted or driven off the pagans from Ireland’s shores.

But that had been six centuries ago.

Martin turned to stare out of the church toward the dead village. Girard’s words echoed in his head. The boy starved with a full belly.

None of it made any sense.

The abbot mumbled behind him. “It must all be burned. The soil sowed with salt.”

Martin nodded, but a worry grew in his breast. Could any flame truly destroy what was wrought here? He did not know for sure, but he was certain about one thing.

This was not over.

Present Day

October 8, 11:55 P.M.

Vatican City

Father Marco Giovanni hid in a dark forest of stone.

The massive marble pillars held up the roof of Saint Peter’s Basilica and sectioned off the floor into chapels, vaults, and niches. Works of the masters filled the hallowed space: Michelangelo’s Pietà, Bernini’s Bald-acchino, the bronze statue Saint Peter Enthroned.

Marco knew he wasn’t alone in this stone forest. There was a hunter with him, lying in wait, most likely near the rear of the church.

Three hours ago he had received word from a fellow archaeologist who also served the Church, his former mentor at the Gregorian University in Rome. He’d been told to meet him here at midnight.

However, it had proved to be a trap.

With his back against a pillar, Marco held his right hand clamped under his left arm, stanching the bleeding along his left side. He’d been cut down to the ribs. Hot liquid flowed over his fingers. His left hand clutched the proof he needed, an ancient leather satchel no larger than a coin purse. He held tight to it.

As he shifted to peer down the nave, more blood flowed. It splattered to the marble floor. He could wait no longer, or he’d grow too weak. Saying a silent prayer, he pushed off the pillar and fled down the dark nave toward the papal altar. Each pounding step was a fresh stab in his side. But he hadn’t been cut with any knife. The arrow had imbedded itself in the neighboring pew after slicing open his side. The weapon had been short, stubby, black. A steel crossbow bolt. From his hiding place, Marco had studied it. A small red diode had glowed at its base, like some fiery eye in the dark.

Not knowing what else to do, Marco simply fled, staying low. He knew he would most likely die, but the secret he held was more important than his own life. He had to survive long enough to reach the far exit, find one of the patrolling Swiss Guards, and get word to the Holy See.

Ignoring his pain and terror, he ran.

The papal altar lay directly ahead. The bronze canopy over it, designed by Bernini, rested on twisted columns. Marco flanked to the left of it, aiming for the transept on that side. He spotted the massive Monument to Alexander VII and the doorway sheltered beneath it.

It was the exit out onto Piazza Santa Marta.

If only—

A punch to his belly ended any hope. He fell back a step and glanced down. No fist had struck him. A steel shaft tipped by plastic feathers stuck out of his shirt. Pain came a breath later, shattering outward. Like the first arrow, this crossbow bolt also glowed with a fiery eye. The diode rested atop a square chamber at the base of the shaft.

Marco stumbled backward. A shift of shadows near the door revealed a figure dressed in the motley clothing of a Swiss Guard, surely a disguise. The assassin lowered his crossbow and stepped out from the sheltered doorway where he’d lain in wait.