Kat leaned forward. "Here's one from August 2004. Purdue University reports success in using rhodium to kill viruses with light from inside inside a body. Even West Nile virus." a body. Even West Nile virus."

"Light?" Vigor asked, his eyes narrowing.

Gray glanced to him, noting the monsignor's intensified interest.

Kat nodded. "There are a slew of articles about these m-state atoms and light. From turning DNA into superconducting strands...to light-wave communication between cells...to tapping into zero field energies."

Rachel finally spoke up. She still kept her eyes closed. She'd been listening all along, eavesdropping. "It makes one wonder."

"What?" Gray turned to her.

She slowly opened her eyes. They were bright and alert. "Here scientists are now talking about heightening awareness, levitation, trans.m.u.tation, miraculous healing, anti-aging. It sounds like a list of miracles from biblical times. It makes me wonder why so many miracles happened back then, but not now. In the past few centuries, we're lucky to see an image of the Virgin Mary on a tortilla. Yet now, science science is rediscovering these larger miracles. And much of it traces back to a white powder, a substance known better back then than today. Could such secret knowledge have been the source for the epidemic of miracles back in biblical times?" is rediscovering these larger miracles. And much of it traces back to a white powder, a substance known better back then than today. Could such secret knowledge have been the source for the epidemic of miracles back in biblical times?"

Gray pondered this, meeting her gaze. "And if these ancient magi knew more than we know now," he extrapolated, "what has this lost fraternity of wise men done with this knowledge, to what level have they refined it?"

Rachel continued the thread. "Maybe that's what the Dragon Court is after! Maybe they found some clue, something tied to the bones that could lead them to whatever this purified end product might be. Some final plateau reached by the mages."

"And along the way, the Court learned that murderous trick back in Cologne, a way to use the powder to kill." He remembered the monsignor's words about the Jewish Kabbalah, that the white powder could be used for good or ill.

Rachel's face sobered. "If they should attain even greater power, gaining access to the inner sanctum of these ancient wise men, they could change the world, remake it in their own sick image."

Gray stared around at the others. Kat wore a calculating expression. Vigor seemed lost in his own thoughts, but the monsignor noted the sudden silence.

His eyes focused back on them.

Gray faced him. "What do you think?"

"I think we have to stop them. But to do that, we're going to have to search for clues to these ancient alchemists. That means following in the footsteps of the Dragon Court."

Gray shook his head. He recalled his concern that they were proceeding too cautiously, too timidly. "I'm done following the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. We need to pa.s.s pa.s.s them. Let them eat our dust for a change." them. Let them eat our dust for a change."

"But where do we begin?" Rachel asked.

Before anyone could answer, a programmed announcement came over the train's intercom.

"Roma...Stazione Termini...quindici minuti!"

Gray checked his watch. Fifteen minutes.

Rachel was staring at him.

"Benvenuto a Roma," she said as he looked up. she said as he looked up. "Lasci i giochi cominciare!" "Lasci i giochi cominciare!"

Gray translated, a ghost of a smile forming. It was as if she read his mind. Welcome to Rome.... Let the games begin! Welcome to Rome.... Let the games begin!

6:05 P P.M.

SEICHAN SLIPPED on a pair of black and silver Versace sungla.s.ses. on a pair of black and silver Versace sungla.s.ses.

When in Rome...

She stepped out onto Piazza Pia from the express bus. She wore a breezy white summer dress and nothing else except for a pair of stiletto-heeled Harley-Davidson boots with silver buckles, a match to her necklace.

The bus pulled away. Behind her, cars jammed the road, a honking, belching line of traffic, headed down Via della Conciliazone. The heat and reek of petrol struck her simultaneously. She faced to the west. Down the street, St. Peter's Basilica rose, silhouetted against the setting sun. The dome shone like gold, a masterpiece of design by Michelangelo.

Unimpressed, Seichan turned her back on Vatican City.

It was not her goal.

Before her stood a structure that rivaled the great St. Peter's. The ma.s.sive drum-shaped building filled the skyline, a fortress overlooking the Tiber River. Castel Sant'Angelo. Atop its roof, a mammoth bronze statue of the Archangel Michael bore aloft an unsheathed sword. The sculpture blazed in the sun. The stone structure beneath was blackened soot, stained in rivulets, like a flow of black tears.

How fitting, Seichan thought.

The place had been built in the second century as a mausoleum to Emperor Hadrian, but shortly thereafter, it had been taken over by the papacy. Still, the castle had developed an ill.u.s.trious and ign.o.ble history. Under Vatican rule, it had served as a fortress, a prison, a library, even as a brothel. It had also been a secret rendezvous spot for some of the more notorious popes, who kept concubines and mistresses within its walls, often imprisoned there.

Seichan found it amusing to make her own rendezvous here. She crossed the gardens to the entrance and pa.s.sed through the twenty-foot-thick walls to enter the first floor. It was dark and cool inside. This late in the day, tourists were dribbling out. She headed in, climbing up the wide curved Roman steps.

Off the main staircase, the castle spread out in a warren of rooms and halls. Many visitors got lost.

But Seichan was only going up to the middle level, to a terrace restaurant that overlooked the Tiber. She was to meet her contact there. After the firebombing, it was deemed too risky to meet in the Vatican itself. So her contact was going to cross down the Pa.s.setto del Borgo, a covered pa.s.sageway atop an old aqueduct that connected the Apostolic Palace to the castle fortress here. The secret pa.s.sage had been originally constructed in the thirteenth century as an emergency escape route for the pope, but over the centuries, it was more often used for amorous trysts.

Though today, there was nothing romantic about this meeting.

Seichan followed the signs to the terrace cafe. She checked her watch. She was ten minutes early. Just as well. She had a call to make.

She slipped out her cell phone, pressed the scramble feature, and tapped in the speed-dial code. A private, unlisted number. She leaned on a hip, phone to her ear, and waited for the international connection to be made.

The line buzzed, clicked, and a firm, no-nonsense voice answered.

"Good afternoon. You've reached Sigma command."

8.

CRYPTOGRAPHY.

JULY 25, 6:23 P P.M.

ROME, ITALY.

I NEED NEED pen and paper," Gray said, his satellite phone in hand. pen and paper," Gray said, his satellite phone in hand.

The group waited at a sidewalk trattoria across from Rome's central train station. Upon arriving, Rachel had called for a pair of Carabinieri vehicles to collect and escort the team to Vatican City. While they waited, Gray had decided it was time to break his silence with central command. He'd been pa.s.sed immediately to Director Crowe.

After a short debriefing of events in Cologne and Milan, the director had his own surprising bit of news.

"Why would she call you?" Gray asked the director as Monk fished in his pack for pad and pen.

Painter answered, "Seichan is playing our two groups off one another to further her own end. She is not even trying to hide it. The intel she pa.s.sed to us was stolen from the Dragon Court's field operative, a man named Raoul."

Gray scowled, remembering the man's handiwork back in Milan.

"I don't think she can decipher the intel on her own," Painter continued. "So she pa.s.sed it to us-both to solve it for her and to keep you on the tail of the Court. She's no fool. Her skill at manipulation must be masterful to be picked by the Guild to oversee this a.s.signment...plus you two have a past. Despite her help in Cologne and Milan, don't trust her. She will eventually turn on you and attempt to even the score."

Gray felt the weight of the metal coin in his pocket. He didn't need the warning. The woman was ice and steel.

"Okay," Gray said as he had pen and paper in hand, holding the phone with his shoulder. "I'm ready."

As Painter pa.s.sed on the message, Gray wrote it down.

"And it's broken into stanzas, like a poem?" Gray asked.

"Exactly." The director continued reciting as Gray jotted each line.

Once finished, Painter said, "I have codebreakers working on it here and at the NSA."

Gray frowned at the pad. "I'll see what I can make of it. Perhaps using some of the resources at the Vatican, we can make some headway here."

"In the meantime, keep on your toes," Painter warned. "This Seichan character may be more dangerous than the entire Court."

Gray didn't argue with this last statement. With a few final clarifications, he signed off and stored the phone away. The others looked on expectantly.

"What was that all about?" Monk asked.

"The Dragon Lady called Sigma. She pa.s.sed on a mystery for us to solve. It seems she has no idea what the Court is going to do next, and while they prepare, she wants us to be nipping at their heels. So she leaked some archaic pa.s.sage, something discovered two months ago by the Dragon Court in Egypt. Whatever its content, she says it initiated the current operation."

Vigor stood up from one of the trattoria's outdoor tables. With a tiny espresso cup balanced in one hand, he leaned over to read the pa.s.sage along with the others.

When the full moon mates with the sun,It is born eldest.What is it?Where it drowns,It floats in darkness and stares to the lost king.What is it?The Twin waits for water,But will be burned to bone by bone upon the altar.What is it?

"Oh, that helps," Monk grumbled.

Kat shook her head. "What does any of this have to do with the Dragon Court, high-spin metals, and some lost society of alchemists?"

Rachel glanced along the street. "The scholars at the Vatican may be able to help. Cardinal Spera has promised his full support."

Gray noted Vigor had only glanced once at the sheet of paper, then turned away. He sipped his espresso.

Gray had had enough of the man's silences. He was done with polite respect of each other's boundaries. If Vigor wanted to be on this team, it was high time he acted like it.

"You know something," Gray accused.

The others turned to them.

"So should you," Vigor answered.

"What do you mean?"

"I already described this back on the train." Vigor turned and tapped a finger on the pad. "The cadence of this pa.s.sage should be familiar. I described a book with a similar pattern of text. The repet.i.tion of the phrase 'what is it.'"

Kat remembered first. "From the Egyptian Book of the Dead Book of the Dead."

"The Papyrus of Ani, to be exact," Vigor continued. "It is broken into lines of cryptic description followed by the one line repeated over and over again: 'what is it.'"

"Or in Hebrew, manna, manna," Gray said, remembering.

Monk rubbed a hand over the stubble poking from his shaved scalp. "But if this pa.s.sage is from some well-known Egyptian book, why would it light a fire under the Court now?"

"The pa.s.sages aren't from the Book of the Dead, Book of the Dead," Vigor answered. "I'm familiar enough with the Papyrus of Ani to know these pa.s.sages are not found among the others."

"Then where did they come from?" Rachel asked.

Vigor turned to Gray. "You said the Dragon Court discovered this in Egypt...only months ago."

"Exactly."

Vigor turned to Rachel. "I'm sure as a part of the Carabinieri TPC that you were informed of the recent chaos at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The museum sent out an alert through Interpol."

Rachel nodded and explained to the others. "Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities began a painstaking process in 2004 of emptying the bas.e.m.e.nt to the Egyptian Museum, prior to renovation. But upon opening the bas.e.m.e.nt, they discovered over a hundred thousand pharaonic and other artifacts among its maze of corridors, an archaeological dumping ground that was all but forgotten."

"They estimate it will take five years to catalogue it all," Vigor said. "But as a professor of archaeology, I've heard tidbits of discoveries. There was an entire room of crumbling parchments that scholars suspect may have come from the lost Library of Alexandria, a major bastion of Gnostic study."

Gray recalled Vigor's discussion about Gnosticism and the pursuit of secret knowledge. "Such a discovery would surely attract the Dragon Court."

"Like moths to flame," Rachel said.

Vigor continued, "One of the items catalogued came from a collection of Abd el-Latif, an esteemed fifteenth-century Egyptian physician and explorer who lived in Cairo. In his collection, preserved in a bronze chest, was a fourteenth-century illuminated copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Book of the Dead, a complete rendering of the Papyrus of Ani." Vigor stared hard at Gray. "It was stolen four months ago." a complete rendering of the Papyrus of Ani." Vigor stared hard at Gray. "It was stolen four months ago."

Gray felt his pulse quicken. "By the Dragon Court."

"Or someone in their employ. They have fingers everywhere."

"But if the book is just a bootleg of the original," Monk said, "what's the significance?"

"The Papyrus of Ani has hundreds of stanzas. I wager someone forged this copy and hid these these specific stanzas"-Vigor tapped Gray's pad-"among the more ancient ones." specific stanzas"-Vigor tapped Gray's pad-"among the more ancient ones."

"Our lost alchemists," Kat said.

"Hiding needles in a haystack," Monk said.

Gray nodded. "Until some scholar in the Dragon Court was wise enough to pick them out, decipher the clues, and act on it. But where does that leave us?"

Vigor turned to the street. "You mentioned on the train a desire to catch up and pa.s.s the Dragon Court. Now is our chance."