The Doomsday Key (Sigma Force 6)

He glanced significantly at Gray in what passed as subtlety for the big man.

Rachel’s face turned to a pale shade of crimson.

Gray was saved from further embarrassment by the ringing of his cell phone on the bedside table. He checked his watch. That had to be Painter. He collected the phone and moved back to the window.

“Pierce here,” he said as the secure connection clicked through.

“So are you settled?” the director asked.

“For the moment.”

Gray appreciated focusing back on the matter at hand. Kowalski headed into the bathroom with his two bottles of wine. Rachel sat on the bed and listened to his end of the conversation. Over the next fifteen minutes, Gray and Painter compared notes: three murders on three continents, the violence perpetrated to cover up what was going on, the significance of the pagan symbol that seemed to link everything together.

Painter described his plan to travel to Norway to investigate Viatus and its CEO.

“And Monk is going with you?” Gray asked, both surprised and glad for his friend.

“Along with John Creed, our new resident geneticist. He was the one who decrypted the data from Jason Gorman’s e-mail.” Painter’s voice firmed to a more serious tone. “Which brings us to what Lieutenant Verona discovered, what someone apparently wanted destroyed.”

“The mummified finger.”

Gray glanced at Rachel. They’d had a long discussion on the train ride out of Rome. Father Marco Giovanni had been working at an excavation site in northern England, somewhere in the mountainous and remote region that bordered Scotland. They still had no more details about the excavation. All they knew was that Vigor’s former student had been researching the roots of Celtic Christianity, when pagan worship merged with Catholicism.

Gray had already related some details to Painter. But he hadn’t expanded on what Rachel had divulged on the train.

“Director, maybe you’d better hear this from Lieutenant Verona herself. I’m not sure of the significance, but it’s worth noting if only for thoroughness.”

“Very well. Put her on.”

Gray crossed back to the bed and passed her the cell phone. “I thought you should tell Painter what you learned.”

She nodded. He remained standing near the bedpost. After a few pleasantries, Rachel cut to the strange matter of the priest’s obsession.

“Before everything went to hell in Rome,” Rachel explained, “I had acquired a list of published papers and treatises written by Father Giovanni, some going back to when he was a student. It was plain he was fixated on a specific mythology of the Catholic faith, an incarnation of the Virgin Mary known as the Black Madonna.”

Gray listened with half an ear as she explained. He was familiar with the subject. He had studied comparative religions before joining Sigma and knew the history and mysteries surrounding the cult of the Black Madonna. Over the centuries, going back to the very start of Christianity, statues and paintings had appeared that depicted the Mother of Christ with dark or black skin. These came to be revered and treasured. Over four hundred of the images still existed in Europe, a few dating all the way back to the eleventh century. And a large number of them were still worshiped and venerated: the Black Madonna of Czestochowa in Poland, the Madonna of Hermits in Switzerland, the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. The list went on and on.

Despite this ongoing veneration, controversy continued to surround these unique Madonnas. While some claimed miraculous properties associated with them, others declared the dark skin was due to nothing more than accumulated candle soot or the natural darkening of wooden statues or old marble. The Catholic Church avoided acknowledging any significance or spiritual powers for these incarnations.

Rachel continued with Father Giovanni’s fixation. “Marco was convinced that Celtic Christianity built its foundations upon the Black Madonna, that this image represented the fusion of the old pagan Earth Mother with the new worship of the Virgin Mary. He spent his career searching for this connection, the true source behind the mythology.”

Rachel paused, plainly listening to a question from Painter, then answered, “I don’t know if he ever found that source. But he found something, something worth dying over.”

Rachel stopped again to listen, then said, “Right. I agree. I’ll pass you back to Commander Pierce.”

Gray accepted the phone, lifted it to his ear, and returned to the window. “Sir?”

“Considering Rachel’s story, it seems plain what your next step must be.”

Gray had no doubt of the correct answer. “Investigate the excavation site in England.”

“Precisely. I don’t know how the murders in Africa and Princeton tie to Father Giovanni’s research. But there must be some connection. I’ll follow up in Oslo concerning the genetic research—you see what that mummified finger points to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you need any additional personnel for this mission? Or can you manage with Joseph Kowalski and Lieutenant Verona?”

“I think the leaner we move, the better.”

Despite his best effort, a strained edge tightened his voice. There remained one detail he had never divulged to Painter Crowe. Gray stared down into the garden, to the crimson glow of a cigarette. He hated to lie to the director, even if it was only a sin of omission, but if Gray told Sigma Command about their new ally here, Painter would have no choice but to send a team to collect her, to cart her off to an interrogation camp.

Gray could not allow that.

Still, he hesitated.

Was he making the right choice? Or was he needlessly putting the entire mission in jeopardy?

Gray turned from the window to discover Rachel staring at him. In her eyes, he recognized that his decision threatened more than just his own life. Still, he also remembered a pained plea two years ago, one full of need and hope.

Trust me, Gray. If only a little.

Facing the dark window again, Gray stared at his reflection. After a long steadying breath, he spoke into the phone.

“We’ll be fine on our own.”

11

October 11, 11:22 P.M.

Oslo, Norway

Ivar Karlsen pulled on the heavy oak door, its planks strapped with hammered iron. Snow swirled through the moonless night and whipped in sudden gusts into the narrow arched entry. Cold pinched his exposed cheeks, while the iron handle was so frozen it burned his fingers as he hauled open the door. The day’s storm had indeed turned into the first true snowfall by evening.

The harsh weather stirred Ivar, got his heart pounding, his breath blowing strongly. Perhaps he did indeed have Viking blood running through his veins as his old bestemor claimed.