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front lawn of the courtyard and pounded into the rain-soaked loam. The impact traveled up the catwalk, slamming Gray from his perch. He flew several yards and landed on his back on the soft lawn. He had only been a few yards from the ground.
    Sitting up, he leaned on one elbow.
    The line of security trucks had retreated as the ball fell toward them.
    But they would not stay gone. And he must not get caught.
    Gray gained his feet with a groan and stumbled back into the pall of smoke from the collapsed building. Only now did he hear the alarms ringing throughout the base. He shed out of his body suit as he moved, transferring his identification tags to his civilian clothes beneath. He hurried to the far side of the courtyard, to the next building, to where he had left his motorcycle.
    He found it intact.
    Throwing a leg over the seat, he keyed the ignition. The engine purred happily to life. He reached for the throttle, then paused. Something had been hooked around his handlebar. He freed it, stared at it for a moment, then shoved it in a pocket.
    Damn…
    He throttled up and edged his bike to a neighboring alleyway. The path appeared clear for the moment. He hunched down, gunned the engine, and shot between the dark buildings. Reaching Porter Street, he made a sharp left turn, coming around fast, leaning out his left knee for balance. Only a couple cars shared the street. None of them appeared to be MP vehicles.
    He zigzagged around them and sped off toward the more rural section of the base that surrounded Nallin Pond, a parkland region of gently rolling hills and patches of hardwood forest.
    He would wait out the worst of the commotion, then slip away. For now, he was safe. Still, he felt the weight of the object in his pocket, left as decoration on his bike.
    A silver chain…with a dangling dragon pendant.
    5:48 A . M .
WASHINGTON, D.C.
    P AINTER STEPPED back from the satellite console. The technician had caught Grayson’s escape by motorcycle as he appeared out of the cloud of smoke and dust. Logan was still on the phone, passing information down a series of covert channels, sounding the all-clear. Whitewashed from on high, the trouble at the base would be blamed on miscommunication, faulty wiring, decomposing munitions.
    Sigma Force would never be mentioned.
    The satellite tech held his earpiece in place. “Sir, I have a telephone call from the director of DARPA.” “Switch it over here.” Painter plucked up another receiver. He listened as the scrambled communication was routed.
    The tech nodded to him as the dead air over the line seemed to breathe to life. Though no one spoke, Painter could almost sense his mentor and commander. “Director McKnight?” he said, suspecting the man was calling to get a mission debrief.
    His suspicion proved wrong.
    He heard the stress in the other’s voice. “Painter, I just received some intel out of Germany. Strange deaths at a cathedral. We need a team on the ground there by nightfall.”
    “So soon?”
    “Details will follow within the quarter hour. But we’re going to need your best agent to head this team.”
    Painter stared over at the satellite monitor. He watched the motorcycle skim through the hills, flickering through the sparse canopy of trees.
    “I may have just the man. But may I ask what the urgency is?”
    “A call came in early this morning, requesting Sigma to investigate the matter in Germany. Your group has been specifically summoned.”
    “Summoned? By whom?”
    To have Dr. McKnight this rattled, it had to be someone as high up as the President. But once again, Painter’s supposition proved wrong.
    The director explained, “By the Vatican.”

2
THE ETERNAL CITY
    JULY 24, NOON
ROME, ITALY
    S O MUCH for making her lunch date.
    Lieutenant Rachel Verona climbed down the narrow stairs that led deep under the Basilica of San Clemente. The excavation below the church had been under way for two months, overseen by a small team of archaeologists from the