The Judas Strain - James Rollins [123]
“Kokejin’s tomb,” Vigor said. “We found it.”
Despite the excitement, they approached solemnly. Gray and Vigor stepped up. They needed to be sure. Vigor blessed their trespass with the sign of the cross and a mumbled prayer.
The monsignor reached a hand to the burial shroud.
“If something moves,” Kowalski whispered, dead serious, “I’m out of here. Just so you know.”
Vigor ignored him and reverently lifted away a fold of cloth from one end. “Silk,” he whispered.
Dust wafted as he pulled it back.
The dome of a skull was revealed. Resting atop it shone a gold headpiece, rubies and sapphires reflected the light. Diamonds glistened.
“The princess’s headpiece,” Vigor said in a hushed voice.
Gray remembered Vigor’s story, how Marco had the headpiece with him at his deathbed.
Vigor’s hand trembled. “Marco must have willed that it be returned. Possibly even arranged to have her body removed and secured in secret, before she finally came to her final rest here.”
Gray reached out and covered Vigor’s hand with his own. “The third paitzu…the third key.”
They were short on time.
Gray drew the silk shroud away from the rest of the bones.
Vigor gasped and fell back a step.
Even Gray froze, stunned.
It was not just one body beneath all the silk trapping.
Two skeletons lay within the tomb, entwined in each other’s arms.
Gray recalled Vigor’s story of the Church of San Lorenzo, how Marco Polo was interred there in 1324, but a later renovation revealed the body to be gone.
“We haven’t just found Kokejin’s tomb,” Vigor said.
Gray nodded. “We found Marco Polo’s tomb, too.”
He stared down at the entwined pair.
What the two couldn’t have in life, they had finally achieved in death.
To be together.
Forever.
Gray wondered if he’d ever find a love that great. It reminded him of his parents, together through so much hardship, struggling through trials of debilitation and now dementia…yet they never gave up on each other.
Someone had to save them.
11:01 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
PAINTER WISHED HE could be on-site, but it would only delay the response team. From Sigma’s com-center, he watched the live video feed. It was broadcast from a helmet camera of one of the strike team.
Ten minutes ago they’d had their first real break.
All morning Painter had busted balls to trace the international phone lugs from Monsignor Verona’s cell phone back to U.S. shores. Gray had mentioned that Amen Nasser had called Vigor’s phone. To trace that call, Painter had to rattle powers from the Vatican’s Curia to Homeland Security’s director of operations. At least with Seichan in tow, he had been able to play the terrorist card. It had opened doors normally closed.
Still, it took longer than he’d liked, but Painter finally knew from where the call had originated. A strike team waited on his word to begin the assault.
He leaned to the microphone. “Go.”
Van doors slid open. The camera feed jittered and jumped. The team closed in from multiple directions, front and rear, running low, assault rifles in hand.
The strike team hit the building like a storm.
A battering ram smashed the front door open in one swing.
The feed went dark as his cameraman followed the others into the building. The team fanned out.
Painter waited.
Unable to sit any longer, he stood up, leaning his fists on the communication array. Technicians crowded either side, viewing other monitors as satellite feed streamed in from Indonesia. A major storm with hurricane-strength winds blanketed most of their region, hampering the search for the hijacked Mistress of the Seas. The storm also grounded a good number of the search planes out of Australia and Indonesia.
The lack of progress had boiled up Painter’s frustration. His fear for Lisa, for Monk, had grown close to crippling.
Then the hit on the phone trace.
He needed a win.
At least here.
Within his earpiece, he heard the chatter of the strike team, crisscrossing reports and call-outs. Finally, one clear voice rang through, coming from the cameraman. He had stopped inside what looked