Map of Bones (Sigma Force 2)

With no choice, they dodged through it. The second man raised his weapon. A wall of fire cascaded toward them. He had a goddamn flamethrower. Gray slammed the door, but flames licked under the jamb. Gray danced back. There was no lock on the door.

He glanced behind him.

Steps spiraled up.

“The tower stair,” Rachel said.

Gunshots struck the door.

“Go,” he said.

He pushed Rachel ahead of him, and they fled up the stairs, winding around and around. Behind and below, the door crashed open. He heard a familiar voice, yelling in German. “Get the bastards! Burn them alive!”

It was the tall man, the leader of the monks.

Footsteps pounded on the stone steps.

With the twist of the staircase, neither party had a clear shot at the other, but that still put the advantage with their pursuers. As Gray and Rachel ran, a fountain of flames chased them, sputtering up after them, whisking around the bend in the tower stairs.

Around and around they ran. The steps grew more narrow as they climbed the constricting throat of the steepled tower. Tall stained-glass windows dotted the way, but they were too thin to climb through, no more than arrow slits.

At last the steps reached the belfry of the tower. A massive free-swinging bell hung over the tower’s steel-grated well. A deck lay around the bell.

Here at least the windows were wide enough to climb through and held no glass to muffle the mighty bell’s peals—but the way through them was sealed by bars.

“A public observation deck,” Rachel said. She kept a gun, one borrowed from Gray, fixed on the opening to the stairs.

Gray hurried around. There was no other way out. The city views opened around him: the Rhine River sparkled, spanned by the arched Hohenzollern Bridge; the Ludwig Museum was lit up brilliantly, as were the blue sails of the Cologne Musical Dome. But there was no escape to the streets below.

Distantly he heard police sirens, a forlorn and eerily foreign wail.

Gray raised his eyes, calculating.

A shout rose from Rachel. Gray turned as a jet of flames erupted from the stairwell. Rachel fled back, joining him.

They had run out of time.

3:34 A.M.

BELOW, IN the cathedral, Yaeger Grell entered the blasted chamber, gun in hand. He had waited until the smoke from the second grenade had cleared out. His two partners had gone to join the others in setting up the final incendiary bombs near the entrance to the church.

He would join them—but first he wanted to see the damage done to those who had killed Renard, his brother-in-arms. He stepped through, readying himself for the stench of bloody flesh and burst bowel.

The remains of the door made the footing treacherous. He led with his gun. As he took a second step, something struck his arm. He backed a step, stunned, not comprehending. He stared down at the severed stump of his wrist as blood spurted. There was no pain.

He glanced up in time to see a sword—a sword!—swinging through the air. It reached his neck before the surprise faded from his features. He felt nothing as his body pitched forward, his head impossibly thrown back.

Then he kept falling, falling, falling…as the world went black.

3:35 A.M.

KAT STEPPED back and lowered the jeweled sword. She bent, grabbed an arm, and dragged the body out of direct view of the doorway. Her head still rang from the grenade blast.

She whispered to Monk—at least she hoped she whispered. She couldn’t even hear her own words. “Help the monsignor.”

Monk stared from the decapitated body back to the bloody sword in her hand, his eyes wide with a shock, but also grudging respect. He stepped over to one of the treasure cases and manhandled the monsignor free of one of the displays. All three of them had hidden inside a bulletproof case after the first grenade blast, knowing a second grenade would follow.

It had.

But the security cases had done their job, protecting the most valuable treasure of all: their lives. The shrapnel had cut through the room, but shielded behind the bulletproof glass, they had survived.

It had been her idea.

Afterward, with the concussion still echoing in her head, Kat had rolled out of her case and found the jeweled sword on the floor. It proved a more circumspect weapon than her pistol. She had not wanted a blast to alert the other gunmen.

Still, her hand shook. Her body remembered the last knife fight she had been in…and the aftermath. She tightened her grip on the sword’s hilt, drawing strength from the hard steel.

Behind her, Monsignor Verona stumbled to his feet. He glanced to his limbs as if surprised to find them still attached.

Kat returned to the door. Except for their dead comrade, none of the other gunmen seemed to be paying attention. They were massed by the entrance.

“We should move.” Kat motioned them out. Sticking to the wall, she led them away from the front exits, away from the guards. She reached the corner where the nave crossed with the transept. Kat waved them around the corner of the intersection.

Once out of the direct view of the gunmen, the monsignor pointed down the length of the transept. “That way,” he whispered.

There was another set of doors back there. Another exit. Unguarded.

With the fifteenth-century sword clutched in her fist, Kat hurried them forward. They had survived.

But what about the others?

3:38 A.M.

RACHEL FIRED her gun down the throat of the spiral staircase, counting down the rounds in the second clip. Nine bullets. They had more ammunition, but no time to load another magazine. Commander Pierce was too busy.

With no other recourse, she shot blindly, sporadically, keeping the attackers at bay. Spouts of flame continued to harass her, licking forth like the tongue of a dragon.

The stalemate could not last much longer.

“Gray!” she yelled, skipping the formalities of rank.

“Another second,” he answered from around the far side of the bell.

As the flames faltered from the stairwell, Rachel aimed and squeezed the trigger. She had to hold them off. The bullet struck the stone wall and ricocheted down the staircase.

Then her pistol’s slide locked open.

Out of bullets.

She backed away and circled the bell to the far side.

Gray had his pack off and had tied a rope around one of the window bars. He had the other end wrapped around his waist and the slack over one arm. He had used a hand jack in a tool kit to pry apart two of the window’s bars, just wide enough to climb through.

“Hold the slack,” he said.

She took the nylon rope, about five meters in length. Behind her, a fresh billow of flame jettisoned from the stairwell. The others were testing again, moving forward.