At the next thoroughfare, she punched into second and sped a block, then made another turn, then another. This section of Rome was a maze of alleyways. There was no way for her tail to keep up with her.
Streaming out Via Aldrovandi, she raced around the edge of the Giardino Zoological Park. She kept a watch on her rearview mirrors. She had escaped her pursuit…at least for now.
Able to free up a hand, she snatched her cell phone. She hit the speed dial for Parioli Station. She needed backup.
As the connection dialed through, she left the main thoroughfare and ducked into the backstreets again, not taking any chances. Who had she pissed off? As a member of the Cultural Heritage Police, she had a number of enemies among the organized-crime families who trafficked in stolen antiquities.
The phone line clicked, buzzed, then all she heard was dead air. She checked the phone’s screen. She had hit a patch of poor reception. The seven hills of Rome and its marble-and-brick canyons wreaked havoc on signal strength.
She hit the Redial button.
As she prayed to the patron saint of cell reception, she used the time to debate returning home and decided against it.
She would be safer at the Vatican until she left for Germany.
Merging onto Via Salaria, the old Salt Road, a main artery through Rome, she finally heard the line connect.
“Central desk.”
Before she could respond, Rachel spotted a blur of black.
The BMW whipped up alongside her Mini Cooper.
A second car appeared on her other side.
Identical, except this one was white.
She’d had not the one tail…but two. Fixed on the conspicuous black car, she had failed to spot the white one. A fatal mistake.
The two cars slammed into her, pinning her between them with a screech of metal and paint. Their back windows were already lowered. The blunt noses of submachine guns poked out.
She slammed on her brakes, metal screamed, but she was wedged tight. There was no escape.
3
SECRETS
JULY 24, 10:25 A.M.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
HE HAD to get out of here.
In the gym locker room, Grayson Pierce pulled on a pair of black biker’s shorts, then slipped a loose-fitting nylon soccer jersey over his head. He sat on the bench and tied on a pair of sneakers.
Behind him, the locker room door swung open. He glanced back as Monk Kokkalis entered, a basketball under one arm and a baseball cap on backward. Standing only three inches over five feet, Monk looked like a pit bull wearing sweats. Still, he proved to be a fierce and agile ballplayer. Most people underestimated him, but he had an uncanny talent to read an opponent, to outfox any guard, and few of his layups ever missed.
Monk tossed the basketball into the equipment bin—again making a perfect shot—then crossed to his locker. He stripped off his sweatshirt, balled it up, and shoved it inside.
He eyeballed Gray. “That’s what you’re wearing to meet Commander Crowe?”
Gray stood. “I’m heading over to my folks’.”
“I thought the ops manager told us to stick to campus?”
“Screw that.”
Monk raised an eyebrow. The bushy brows were the only hair on his shaved head. He preferred to stick to the look drilled into him by the Green Berets. The man carried other physical attributes from his former military life: puckered bullet wound scars, three of them, shoulder, upper leg, and chest. He had been the only one of his team to survive an ambush in Afghanistan. During his recovery Stateside, Sigma had recruited him because of his genius-level IQ and retrained him through a doctoral program in forensic medicine.
“Have you already been cleared by medical?” Monk asked.
“Just contusions and a couple bruised ribs.” Along with a wounded ego, he added silently, fingering the tender spot below his seventh rib.
Gray had already given his videotaped debriefing. He had secured the bomb but not the Dragon Lady. The one lead into a major pipeline of bioweapons trafficking had escaped. He had sent her dragon-charm pendant down to forensics for any trace or fingerprint evidence. He didn’t expect anything to be found.
He grabbed his backpack from the bench. “I’ll have my beeper with me. I’m only fifteen minutes away by Metro.”
“And you’re going to leave the director waiting?”
Gray shrugged. He’d had enough: the postmission debriefing, the in depth medical exam, and now this mysterious summons by Director Crowe. He knew he was due for a dressing-down. He shouldn’t have gone in alone to Fort Detrick. It had been a bad call. He knew it.
But still riding the adrenaline surge from this morning’s near disaster, Gray couldn’t sit idle and simply wait. Director Crowe had gone off to a meeting over at DARPA headquarters in Arlington. There was no telling when he’d be back. In the meantime, Gray needed to move, to let off some steam.
He pulled on his small riding backpack.
“Have you heard who else has been summoned to the meeting with the director?” Monk asked.
“Who?”
“Kat Bryant.”
“Really?”
A nod.
Captain Kathryn Bryant had entered Sigma only ten months ago, but she had already completed a fast-track program in geology. There were rumors that she was also completing an engineering discipline. She would be only the second operative with a dual degree. Grayson was the first.
“Then it can’t be a mission assignation,” Gray said. “They wouldn’t send someone so green out into the field.”
“None of us is that green.” Monk grabbed a towel and headed for the showers. “She did come out of the intelligence branch of the Navy. Black ops, they say.”
“They say a lot of things,” Gray mumbled and crossed to the exit.
Despite the number of high IQs, Sigma was no less a rumor mill than any corporation. Even this morning’s summons had followed a flurry of memos and a recall of operatives. Of course, some of this activity was the direct result of Gray’s mission. The Guild had attacked one of their members. Speculation abounded. Was there a new leak, or had the ambush been planned based on old intel, prior to Sigma’s move to Washington from DARPA’s headquarters in Arlington and the purging of its operations there?
Either way, another rumor persisted in the halls of Sigma: a new mission was being planned, one commanded high up the chain, one of vital national interest. But nothing else was known.
Gray refused to play the rumor game. He would wait to hear from the commander himself. Besides, it’s not like he would be going anywhere soon. He’d be warming the bench for some time.